The other way around

If the President really wants to make an impact in terms of government service he should order a performance audit and a survey on how Barangay officials are doing in their area. It is at the Barangay level where citizens first form their impressions on whether government is doing its job and is benefitting people.

Are people proud of their community or their Barangay? Is it a clean, safe and organized community? Are rules and laws being implemented to insure the common good of all residents? Are the Barangay officials reporting for work on time and regularly? Are they inter-acting with the residents on a regular basis or are they usually holed up in their offices?

The notion that everything should start at the top as in Malacañang or the Executive department is actually flawed because by the time any real benefit or change is felt by ordinary citizens, those at the top are on their way out or have outlived their term in office. If PNoy wants his presence and his vision felt, he should get off the “throne” and walk the floor.

Midway into the next election, PNoy should be asking; how are barangay officials doing? Given the fact that a number of them won’t or can’t run in the next election, some barangay officials have spent more time running their personal business or preparing for their exit instead of carrying on doing their jobs.

In some areas, I observed that Barangay officials have dual personalities: one as Barangay Captain and the other as entrepreneur. Very few are actually “Full Time” public servants. This “moonlighting situation” needs to be addressed by Secretary Jesse Robredo once and for all. Being a barangay official is a full time job and should be treated as such.

The DILG should have its own intelligence task force to determine who among the thousands of Barangay officials have been living a double life by compromising public service. While we can’t monitor all of them, by simply catching, suspending or even removing unfaithful public servants, the PNoy administration would accomplish more than they ever will with impeachment cases.

Yes we all want to catch the corrupt “Big Fish”, but catching them won’t improve the quality of life in our daily lives as much and as quickly as a campaign that ferrets out the lazy and the corrupt barangay officials. By launching the campaign now, the PNoy administration will also send a message to those planning to run in Barangay elections, that the positions are not for prestige in the community, not a responsibility you delegate to an assistant but a job where you serve the community and not the other way around.

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None of us thought much of it, in fact it seemed like an OK idea at the time, but from the looks of it, a problematic legacy may have been born out of the “Bourne Legacy” film shoots in Metro Manila.

After a couple of weeks, the novelty and interest in the filming of the Bourne Legacy in Metro Manila has tapered off and some people have started to realize that letting a film crew turn our major roads into their own private film lot may have not have been a 100% great idea.

Traffic was affected, the poor tricycle drivers who had hoped to get some money as extras never had their 2 seconds of fame nor their talent fees and like many other production crews, the BL crew was no exception in terms of disobeying rules and agreements, so much so that Chairman Francis Tolentino personally had the drivers cited for traffic violations. Over all, I have to say that the MMDA did a good job of putting things under control.

After all this, we now have to wait months if not years until the movie comes out in order for us to know if the movie portrayed the Metro Manila in a realistic manner or far worse than most of us will be willing to accept or admit.

But while we are all waiting, a local production crew has already jumped in to use one of Metro Manila’s known roads to shoot an action scene complete with a bus “flying off” a flyover. I’m all for realism but not if ordinary Filipinos have to suffer in terms of traffic jams and delays that can cause them their jobs, lose business or simply inconvenience them.

I am concerned that this “business” of allowing film shootings in our busy streets should not be allowed to become commonplace and should be a very expensive exemption. In fact I’d like to know how much money the MMDA or the Philippines earns when a foreign film is shot in the Philippines as well as when a local network decides to do a smash-up shot on EDSA or Roxas boulevard.

If this is a new business concept for MMDA, what is the MMDA giving back to compensate for the inconvenience suffered by motorists. If the money earned were dedicated to removing street children and poor people sleeping in our sidewalks and building homes for them, I have no qualms about it.

If the money were spent to tile up and light up the walls and walkways along our thoroughfares, by all means lets do it. Let us just make sure that whatever inconvenience we all suffer because of film shoots, will ultimately bring good to the public or our public servants in the MMDA. Lets also make sure that companies who make a profit from our inconvenience actually pay a fair price especially since they will save a lot of money by not having to build and create their own “film lot”.