Vibrant

On one hand, I was a bit distressed that while all the other markets in Asia were surging in a major bull run yesterday, our capital markets were closed for yet another holiday. This time it was for barangay elections.

On the other hand, the enthusiasm our people demonstrated for what might seem to be inconsequential elective posts was indeed heartening. The precincts were full. The turnout was good. The fact that some amount of electoral violence occurred was surprising considering that barangay elections were supposed to be friendly contests among neighbors

For a while, it might have seemed that through all the scandals and recriminations, elections might have lost their legitimizing magic in a political culture that appears to swim in cynicism. But the volume of participation and degree of citizenship engagement should relieve some of the pessimism that burdens our democracy.

We have this day to catch up with our neighbors and participate in the great shift in wealth from the mature economies to the emerging ones. East Asian markets broke records yesterday. We might do so today.

But yesterday, we had the opportunity to reaffirm our faith in electoral democracy.

That faith was shaken by serious questions about the integrity of our electoral system, about the readiness of our citizens to engage in enlightened political participation, and about the availability of a political class truly committed to make our democracy worth our while. In fact, yesterday’s political exercise happens after a long, disturbing train of controversies over money politics.

This last political exercise might not have happened at all. Some thought that two elections in a year was severely taxing our capacity to do more productive things. They wanted barangay elections to be postponed. It was something that did not seem to effectively reinforce, or erode, the present distribution of national power.

Several times before, barangay elections were conveniently postponed or cancelled because they seemed to be a needless distraction, an administrative inconvenience. Some analysts have, in fact, argued that the last real barangay elections we had was nearly two decades ago.

The postponements took a toll. Those occupying posts in what is our smallest political unit had become impervious to the sentiments of their community. There was no available electoral instrument to goad them into better performance in office.

There was disenchantment building up at the grassroots. It was a disenchantment that seemed to be beyond the radar screen of those who held “real” power: at the top echelons of the executive branch, the halls of Congress and the leadership posts of the political parties. Barangay officials were, after all, non-partisan in principle — although, of course, municipal and provincial leaders routinely curried them favor during national elections as a means for mobilizing grassroots votes.

But the barangay political structure had long ago ceased to be inconsequential. The smallest political unit has been empowered to decide on matters that affect the environmental sustainability of the community. The village council enjoys a share of the internal revenue allocation: some amount of money to enable this minuscule political unit to get the important little things done at the community level.

There have been proposals to eradicate the barangay council. It added hundreds of thousands to the public sector payroll, diminishing our capacity to manage our fiscal affairs effectively. It also added to the propensity to break up the national infrastructure budget into small fragments that enabled us, in the end, to build only micro-infra that had little consequence to national development.

Ironically, the barangay was a political devise originally intended to help consolidate centralized power. It was introduced during the period of dictatorship to allow for an army of semi-empowered minor officials to deliver regime propaganda and enable regime political mobilization at the grassroots. The barangay structure was the cadre of the “New Society”, enforcing political conformism in the neighborhoods. It is a classic case for “political corporatism” — the polite, technical term for fascism.

Like the Red Guards in China, the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany and the Young Communist League in Stalinist Russia, the Kabataang Barangay (since mutated into the Sangguniang Kabataan) was intended as a powerful means for mass political indoctrination and physical mobilization for exercises intended to legitimize unelected regimes.

The smallest political unit always had a dual characteristic. It enhanced any regime’s ability to extend its rule to the level of the neighborhoods and draw the participation of millions for the effort to maintain political order. At the same instance, it allowed the smallest political units an instrument for empowering communities.

For instance, the barangay structure has been an effective instrument for combating insurgency, eradicating illegal drug use and fighting terrorism. At the same instance, it has also been the only instrument on hand to enable small communities to assert their sovereignty over their natural resources.

The vibrant participation of our citizens in the last barangay elections may have completed the process of transformation of the smallest political unit from an instrument of centralized political control to a means for communities to assert their sovereignty.

Centralized political regimes governing impermeable nation-states have long fallen out of fashion, undermined both by the growing borderlessness implied by globalization as well as by the increasing assertiveness of local political units expressed in the processes of devolution. This is the context by which we should consider the new significance of the barangay as a political institution.

Whether yesterday’s political exercise was also a measure of popular sentiment regarding the drift of our national politics is something we might analyze as the results are completed.