sangguniang kabataan

SO, THE schedule of the next election for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan has been moved toward the end of 2026?

We would not be surprised if incumbent barangay and SK officials these days are having smiles from ear to ear. Imagine having their stay in office extended for a little over a year!

And for those who are aspiring to challenge the incumbents, they have more than enough time to mobilize resources for the campaign and for themselves to move around for visibility purposes.

By now, we are certain that many will be harboring ambition to run for elective office in the barangays. What with some congressmen, Congressman Omar Duterte of the Second district of Davao City one among them, working on introducing a bill that will give regular fixed monthly compensation for barangay officials, including allowances and coverage by the Government Services Insurance System (GSIS).

And if nothing happens to the investigation on corruption, which is now the focus of the Office of the President, then the barangay officials could add up to their monthly take their “share” of between five down to 2 percent of the project budget allocated for the corrupt officials in concerned agencies.

For now, the barangay officials, from the village chief down to the last barangay councilor, are just contenting themselves with what the contractors of projects call “signature of acceptance” for them to collect the last 10 percent of their collectible from the government.

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Indeed, there are still a number among us Davaoeños who are still very much wanting in discipline and sense of cooperation. This, despite the much-boasted claim that we are among the most disciplined of Filipinos.

And this lack of discipline – or call it lack of respect to existing ordinances in the city – is recently proven by the report that as many as 79 persons were apprehended lately by elements of the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) disposing of their garbage and other household waste in various public and private areas including that of the side of the Davao City Coastal Road.

Yes, many seem unaware that there is an existing ordinance in the city prohibiting the littering, illegal dumping, and improper waste disposal in both public and private places in the whole of Davao City. The Ordinance is called the Davao City Ecological Solid Waste Management, denominated as Ordinance No.0361-10.

Our take on the failure of many of the city’s residents to comply with the Ordinance is the lack of an effective information drive of the city to ensure that the existence of the local law will reach the consciousness of everybody.

Yes, how could one publication of the ordinance, done usually as a requirement for the same to be in effect, succeed in instilling in the minds of people that there is such a local law? And to think that in several cases of Ordinance publication, this was done in “fly-by-night” weekly newspapers with copies normally just enough for billing purposes and some “hand-overs.”

And believe you us. So much of the publication payment goes to the pockets of certain officials, both in the executive and legislative branches of the local government.

For this, we believe, the Council Committee on Information has a job to do – look into what the usual causes are of the people’s seeming ignorance of important policies in place in the city government.

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By Tuesday next week Davaoenos will know who really caused the delay in the transfer of poles and lines, as well as other facilities of both the electric utility and the telecommunication firms.

According to officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), when they appeared before the Davao City Council to shed light on the delay of the work on the Maa-Diversion flyover project, one of the causes is the non-transfer of the utilities’ poles and wires.

By next Tuesday, the two utility companies will be able to present their side also in the City Council. Will both the Power firm and the telecommunication companies conveniently admit that, indeed, they failed to relocate their poles and wires?

“Let us to see,” to borrow the phrase normally used by the late Davaoeño Senator Landring Almendras.