Abuse of office

After the postponement of the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections, President Duterte should ask lawmakers – while Congress is still a Malacañang rubberstamp – to review the barangay and SK systems for an overhaul or even abolition.

The President’s reason for deferring the election is that there are thousands of barangay captains, council members and tanods or watchmen on his list of drug suspects. They would simply finance their campaigns with drug money and possibly win, he said, thereby entrenching narco politics at the grassroots.

And indeed, since the drug war was launched, there’s been a long string of barangay officials shot dead over alleged drug links either by police, vigilantes or, according to some security officials, by rival drug dealers who may also be cops.

It’s not a new phenomenon. Barangay officials were also accused of protecting the shabu tiangge operated by Amin Imam Boratong within spitting distance of the Pasig City Hall. Boratong and his wife are serving life terms for drug trafficking, but police say his relatives now control up to 70 percent of the drug trade in the city. If this is happening even in the time of Oplan Tokhang, some folks must be happily looking the other way.

If Dirty Rody pushes through with his next war, this time against illegal gambling, he might get an even longer list of barangay officials linked to jueteng, masiao, sakla, illegal cockfights – you name it.

Several village officials in the drug trade have reportedly moved on to higher posts, making Du30 worry about creeping narco politics.

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Now there’s a story that reinforces long-held suspicions – that Abu Sayyaf bandits enjoy the protection of local officials particularly in their stronghold in Sulu.

The female barangay captain of Niyog Sangahan in Sulu’s Talipao town, Fauzia Abdulla, was arrested Saturday by a joint military-police team on charges that she provided sanctuary, food and an information network to the Abu Sayyaf bandits who kidnapped two Canadians, a Norwegian and a Filipina from a Samal Island resort last year. The two Canadians were beheaded while the Norwegian and Filipina were freed reportedly after a ransom payment of P50 million for Kjartan Sekkingstad and an unspecified amount for Marites Flor.

Sulu residents tipped off government forces about Abdulla’s activities, security officials said. This is a most welcome development. The residents should provide more tips, because it takes a village, so to speak, to support a terrorist/kidnapping network.

Someone who survived an Abu Sayyaf kidnapping a few years ago told friends that the only entity informed about her arrival in Sulu was the local government. During the Estrada presidency, a prominent official was widely suspected of getting a share, in cahoots with certain officials in Sulu, in the millions of dollars paid in ransom for mostly foreign hostages seized from the Malaysian island resort of Sipadan.

Since ransom money has never been recovered from the Abu Sayyaf, we shouldn’t be surprised that 16 years after the Sipadan kidnapping, the bandits are still at it, despite the neutralization of several of their commanders. That kind of money in one of the most impoverished provinces is as irresistible as drug money – the colossal profits far outweigh the risks.

And it’s hardly surprising that a barangay captain has been implicated as a coddler. It’s not uncommon to hear complaints about barangay officials abusing their positions, engaging in crime and becoming symbols of failed governance. Investors and entrepreneurs from micro to large-scale operations have long complained about red tape and extraneous or redundant fees collected at whim by barangay units, with little accountability in the use of public funds.

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In Metro Manila, mayors and vice mayors, who need the barangay officials’ support, look the other way when parking fees are collected by village officials without receipts or when barangay captains allow wakes with sakla on sidewalks or right along busy streets. Barangay officials are among the biggest epals, polluting everything with streamers showing their faces even when election campaigns are over.

Barangay officials know they enjoy free rein in their respective turfs. They are mandated by law to prevent squatting, but in several areas, barangay captains are the landlords themselves of shanty dwellers.

And it’s not surprising that thousands of barangay officials are now implicated in the shabu trade. Drugs – even penny ante operations – are big business. If barangay officials are doing their job, they should be able to identify the drug abusers and dealers in their respective communities, and help curb the drug menace.

SK members at least have a more benign though still negative reputation: many belong to political dynasties and are seen to be merely exploiting the system as an entry point for perpetuating the clan business. In short, they’re just wasting people’s money.

It’s good that Dirty Rody says he received no support from barangay officials in his presidential bid. Now he can get rid of all the rotten eggs without worrying about political debts that must be repaid.

He can also threaten local executives – and sound like he means it – in reminding them that he wants red tape cut.

Yesterday at the commemoration of the third anniversary of Super Typhoon Yolanda in Tacloban City, Duterte promised to end the long wait for permanent shelters for 200,000 survivors. By December, he vowed, he would return to the city to personally inspect the new permanent shelters.

Reminding officials to cut red tape, he said he wanted “routing slips… so I’ll know when is the time to put you to sleep.”

Even without using our creative imagination, it sounded like a joke, of course. But this being the age of Oplan Tokhang, nervous laughter must have reverberated among local executives well beyond Tacloban.

And there are people who wouldn’t mind if the President didn’t mean it as a joke.