Fix the Barangay then we can fix our nation

I was alone when I voted last Monday because my family did not want to go out and vote. They simply did not know whom to vote for because none of the people seeking our votes even cared to knock on our doors to ask for our votes. In my case, I had to go and experience how it is to vote in the old, but tried and tested way - manual voting. All in all, it only took me a total of 15 minutes from the time I got the information where my precinct is and to the time I finished my electoral duty.

What is crystal clear in last Monday's Barangay and SK elections is that the manual voting was smoother and faster than in the last May elections I participated. Perhaps there was a lower turnout of voters, but nonetheless by nighttime I was getting text messages of who won and who lost. But the Philippine Star headlines yesterday was quite telling, that some 1,732 Barangays out of the total of 42,025 in the whole country did not have any elections because of so many problems, including election violence.

This gives us an idea of the incompetence of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) in handling our elections, which in my book was no different from the way they mishandled the last May elections. It's about time that incompetents in the government get fired or sanctioned for they are not worth the salaries that we pay them.

If there was anything I found wrong, it was that the information sheet about my precinct number and location was written on a blue sheet of paper, which I later found out to be the sample ballot of the incumbent Barangay officials. I fault the Comelec for not providing these info centers with neutral paper. But I voted for the incumbents anyway because I have not heard any negatives about them, even if they also didn't care to court for my vote.

But now that the Barangay elections are over and done with, I exhort the Aquino Administration who promised us change in our system to seriously consider the abolition of the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) and perhaps stop the future elections of Barangay leaders in favor of appointment the new officials. The biggest problem our country has to face is a system that has become too politicized! This has happened in the Barangay where the Constitution says is supposed to be apolitical! Let's start by fixing the Barangay, then we can begin fixing our nation!

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Kudos to Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama on his drive to rid the stalls of our beloved Cebu City from all the smut and filth of pornographic DvDs that are openly sold in public. To show that he is serious in his campaign, he publicly destroyed some 6,000 pieces of pirated DvDs. But then, hizzoner must be told that for as long as no pirate is thrown to jail and tried for this crime, all this will just be another cat and mouse game. If he is truly serious in eliminating this problem (which unfortunately, anyone connected to the Internet can still view anyway) then he must come up with a team from City Hall that would do a yearly drive against video pirates.

The Amusement Taxes was once the biggest revenue generator of the City of Cebu especially during my father's time. In fact, during the term of the late Mayor Ronald Duterte, he found himself very short and unable to pay the salaries of City Hall employees. So he called my father, the late Atty. Jesus "Lindong" Avila who was the President of the Cebu Theater's Association (CTA) and requested our group to "advance" paying the amusement taxes. In all, the CTA gave an advance of P300,000 just to help our beloved city in its financial crisis.

Today, almost all theaters in the city are losing because of the scourge of video pirates (most of them by Muslim traders). It is unfortunate that the City of Cebu isn't doing much to help this industry in time of their need. Perhaps no one in City Hall realizes that helping the theaters fight video piracy is also helping themselves because they still get a huge chunk of the daily receipts from amusement taxes, while City Hall totally tolerates the operation of video piracy that also hurts their own revenue generation. So I certainly hope that under Mayor Mike Rama, he would not only pursue those selling pornography, but video pirates as well and file the necessary cases against these pirates so they would call it quits!

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THE BLACKBOX: Here's one for the Guinness Books. Last Sunday I read in the Philippine Star's World News a story entitled "One of Europe's Largest Brothels Opens in Spain". This brothel called Paradise Brothel with some 150 prostitutes opened in a placed called "La Jonquera". Sounds familiar? Cebuanos have always known that in Cebu City, the brothels can be found in Junquera St. Is this coincidence or are Spanish brothels always placed in Junquera?