Urban
poor neighborhoods in Manila were such that small crowds and bystanders would
usually converge outside of their dwellings, or whatever it was that could be
considered as their homes, or along path walks, or sidewalks whenever streets
existed, no matter how narrow and decrepit they might be. These ad hoc groups
were usually busy at being idle. They chatted endlessly, often mixed with
laughter, especially when a glass of alcoholic drink was being passed around
among them.
In some cases, the
drinking bouts could drag on for hours, well past into the middle of the night
and even beyond, after which their laughter could be heard being replaced by
heated arguments. To their credit, brawls from these impromptu gatherings seldom
erupted. But the immediate neighborhood, also to their lasting credit, had to
tolerate and endure those evenings of being all but quiet.
One day, while Boy
Deo was still in college and he, along with his classmates, was in the middle
of their immersion work in Cerrito, they bumped into one of these early
groupings of bystanders. As they got closer to it, they noticed that people had
astonished glances, followed by quizzical and bewildered looks on their faces,
as they gathered around the naked and lifeless body of a newborn baby, a boy,
lying on his back on top of an improvised cardboard. The baby must have been
freshly recovered from the nearby creek, as some slime and droplets of a
blackish water could be seen still dripping from the body.
Boy Deo could tell that the baby had been dead for a few hours, judging from his bloated belly. He grimaced in pain as memories of another baby that did not survive one cruel night tormented him.
BOY
DEO REMEMBERED SOMETHING similar had happened in Quiapo when he was seven or
eight. An infant, a girl, about a week old, had died on the sidewalk. Her
family, which consisted of a mother and a part-time father, a sister, and a
puppy, lived on the streets. For their possessions, they kept a motley mix of
plastic bags in a nearby pushcart, which they brought along whenever they moved
from place to place. Boy Deo and Junie had seen her family in one of the Quiapo
sidewalks a month before she died in one of those days when the pair, which by
that time had become bosom buddies, joined Father Revo in his casual walks
around the neighborhood. The priest had this habit of spending his free time on
follow-through visits with families he considered in need of talk; it was part
of a larger mission to get the general pulse of his flock.
In early morning
of that day, one Hijo greeted Father Revo as the latter walked toward the
confessional with the news that one of the homeless kids across the boulevard
had died. Boy Deo and Junie spotted Father Revo, wearing his white cassock, and
walking quite briskly, as he passed by Junie’s parents’ store inside the Aguinaldo
Underpass. Without speaking a word, both Boy Deo and Junie jumped into action
to get behind the priest’s tail.
Boy Deo watched
the mother cry as Father Revo tried to console her. A keen kibitzer in the
making, he took mental notes of what was being said by a grief-stricken soul
and the soul-mending comforter.
When the trio
arrived at the scene, the dead body of the baby girl had been wrapped by a
white cloth donated by a transient resident who lived in a nearby apartment.
The parents were waiting for a tricycle that would transport them to the
city-owned cemetery. Barangay (village) officials facilitated the baby’s burial
in the cemetery.
“She was having
diarrhea yesterday,” she told Father Revo. “This morning, she suddenly turned
black before we could bring her to the clinic. Our neighbors here berated us
that we should have sent her to the clinic earlier.”
Then the must-ask
question: “Why did God take her, Father?”
For a minute,
Father Revo did not say a word. When he finally uttered something, it was
brief, and very likely incomprehensible to the mourning mother. “Often, in this
kind of situation, God has no hand in it. It’s okay to cry and be sad, but
let’s be firm. Let’s pray that we can have better control of our lives.”
When the tricycle
arrived, Father Revo asked the mother to bring her daughter to the church for a
brief send-off mass.
After the mass,
Father Revo noticed that Boy Deo and Junie had been following him the entire
time. He gathered them under his hands, one to the left, the other to his
right. Then he fondly rubbed their heads with his palm, as if to say, “that’s
my boy!”
But Boy Deo was
not the typical spectator. In Quiapo, in contrast to his earlier days under
Vida’s care in Lanciano City or under Teresa’s care in Aparición, he liked to
speak his mind.
He asked Father
Revo a question that sounded like this: “Why would God allow this? Yesterday,
during the Feast of John the Baptist, the priest said in his homily said that
if God can turn the stones and make them children of God if he wants to, and
God can count the hair in our head, why can he miss this and prevent it from
happening?”
When Father Revo
was confronted with questions like these, he normally would only look at him
affectionately but would say nothing.
Father Revo did
say something when Boy Deo and Junie were in their early teens. Boy Deo asked,
“If God took care of birds in the air, why does he allow the stray cats to roam
the streets dirty?”
Father Revo then
commented that God wants his people—the ones that he said God could create from
stone—to do the work for him. God wants his people to not only care for the
birds in the air and the stray cats, to not only care for the environment, but
also, and even more importantly, to look after the welfare of the community.
“When you grow older, you can be the ones God can rely on to work for him. Maybe joining politics can initiate the kind of transformation we all need,” Father Revo, half-jesting, cajoled them.
BACK
IN CERRITO, BOY DEO was the consummate facilitator. In meetings with barangay
(village) officials, to which he got invited often, he encouraged them to think
through and speak on their issues. “What is it that keeps you poor?” he would
ask. Then, in trying to facilitate discussions that aimed to prioritize common
issues, he would follow with questions like “Why is that important?” or “What
can we do to address our issues?”
In meetings with
members of the community, he made it a point to discuss the importance of
people owning their issues. He would end the discussion with something like
this: “If we own our issues, we take the initiative to address those issues.
But if we do not own our issues, we will rely on others—which often is the
government—to address those issues for us. If we do not acknowledge the common
issues (like, for example, there is an illegal drug problem, or inefficiencies
in delivery of social services are left unchecked, or there is lack of access
to opportunities) as our own problems, we will wait for others to resolve those
problems for us.”
His keen sense of
empathy and understanding of what ailed urban poor communities endeared him to
the people in the area. His name was soon being talked about in the surrounding
neighborhoods. Some people started to look up to him like he was a savior, or a
prophet, except that he was preaching political transformation rather than
spiritual rebirth.
His work in Cerrito
got noticed by a network of NGOs working in the urban poor sector. At twenty,
he graduated from college with honors, and was promptly hired by another Jesuit
NGO.
To meet one of his
graduation requirements in college, Boy Deo wrote a thesis that drew from
process documentation reports which he and his classmates put together from a
semester-long immersion in Cerrito.
The thesis essayed
the rise of a Citizen’s Congress that sought to address the dysfunctional
system of representation in government. He argued that the existing congress
did not respond to people’s needs, noting that “as a visceral extension of
presidential clout, the present congress—like an appendix whose usefulness
medical science has yet to determine—is a costly prop, an embarrassment from
which the democratic ideal would wish excised.”
Through the
proposed Citizen’s Congress, the people, convened as a rolling constituent
assembly, would become the legislators themselves. More fundamental changes
would be needed as soon as the legislative branch of government began to
function under the new setup. From this assembly (Citizen's Congress),
executives and members of the judiciary branch would be chosen and appointed
through a selection and affirmation process.
As a long-term
agenda, the Citizen's Congress was envisioned to take the place of the current
senate and house of representatives. Registered Filipino voters, whether
residing locally or overseas, would be accorded with access and capability to
exercise the powers and functions performed by the current members of congress.
For the innovation to work, the thesis recommended that remote conferencing and
related communications technology would be needed. At that time (2005),
however, the internet was not yet accessible to all or at least the majority of
commercial and individual would-be users.
To make it easier
for sitting politicians to shift to the new order, Boy Deo proposed that a
Citizen’s Congress secretariat would be created to facilitate the flow of
legislative proposals coming directly from the people. This secretariat would
be composed of the existing members of congress.
In effect, the
elected politicians would only serve to moderate the legislative deliberations,
but the legislative proposals themselves would be introduced and approved by
the people who would be constituted as Citizen’s Congress. The structure would
be like that of the jury system in the United States, where judges (elected
politicians) facilitate the trial, and jury members (the people sitting as
members of Citizen’s Congress) make the decision.
Radical as Boy
Deo’s proposal was, it did recommend a pilot run in one to ten barangays
to start with. All residents in the pilot barangay
would be encouraged to participate in enacting ordinances through electronic
mail or mobile phone messaging. Decisions could be reached by invoking the
usual majority rule (“dividing the house”). However, in cases where less than
60 percent of assembly members expressed support for a policy proposal,
decision-making had to go through consensus (using the Delphi Method, which he
learned from one of his elective public management courses).
The elected
barangay council members, acting as Citizen’s Congress secretariat, would
facilitate the exchange of legislative proposals among assembly members. Each
council member would have to be responsible for facilitating the deliberation
of legislative proposals that fell under his or her committee (e.g., good
government, education, agriculture, peace and order, etc.).
He perorated on
the theme that the existing political system yielded more waste (as a result of
corruption) instead of outputs for every input that was spent using taxpayers’
money.
“What else can be
more obvious an indication of a dysfunctional system of representation of
government than by creating government offices, government corporations, or
regulatory bodies, among other bloated organizations supported by public funds,
which has become commonplace in recent years? The pretext has always been due
to ‘exigency of service,’ whatever that means.
“The reality,
however, is that winners in every election need to reward their supporters with
government appointments. The more consequential the positions to which
appointments are made, the more powerful the appointing authority becomes. When
power builds up beyond what is truly exigent, opportunities are set for the
prevalence of graft and corruption.
“Each newly
created government office or body gives rise to spending obligations. Because
preceding budgets have no provision for these new expenditures, the government
must incur more public debt. In short, taxpayers shoulder the cost of political
patronage.”
FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE REAL WORLD, Boy Deo sought to change the world with his Citizen’s Congress blueprint. But after having spent years of trying to sell his idea, through various platforms and media (he contributed articles in newspapers and magazines, spoke in conventions and public rallies, etc.), Boy Deo felt disappointed that none of the mainstream political figures, even among those whom he considered as progressive-minded, had given his advocacy serious consideration. An article he wrote for the student organ even put him into trouble with the state university, which later claimed that some national legislators pressed the school administrators to expel him or else they risked serious budget cuts. That article, with a publication date of 4 June 2004, is reprinted below:
People and the law
When people own their issues, they
also own the law that aims to address those issues. This ideal state arises
when conditions for people participation have been developed. It promotes a
political system that enables government to respond more effectively to the
needs of its constituents. In such a case, people in government, especially the
elected ones, function as true representatives. They serve people's interests.
Without the necessary condition for
people participation, governance is likely to fail.
How do we know that people own their
issues?
In an ideal, functioning republican
system of government, people would have no need to go to the streets and mount
protest actions to let the state know what their issues are. The structures for
such an ideal setup exist; for example, the Local Government Code (LGC), which
was been in effect since 1991, tried to institutionalize inclusive and
participatory governance processes. LGC prescribes barangay assemblies where
everyone has a forum for an elaboration of their aspirations. It created
barangay councils for sectoral development in which members of the House of
Representatives sit, so that what people say at the lowest levels could be
heard at the highest levels.
Why
congress passes laws that people have no reason to embrace as their own is a
sign of structural defect and of organizational dysfunctions. There is
disconnect and lack of a collective purpose to serve public interests.
When
people get to a point where they own neither their issues nor the process that
public policy making goes through, their representatives in government do not
serve them. These representatives serve strange interests.
The
annual appropriation law of the national government quickly comes to mind as an
example. Every year there is a uniform million or so provision for a
multipurpose something in hundreds of municipalities nationwide. This is one
among many ways by which national politicians legally bribe local political
dynasties for the latter’s support during electoral contests. Kind promotes
kind.
The
same investment proposal would show up in the following budget year, indicating
that nothing consequential came out of the previous year’s expenditures. This
deception is replicated in big-ticket items that seek to modernize
everything—from agriculture, to transport, to internal and external defense
capabilities. Despite the ballyhoo, nothing gets modernized in the end. Every
year, funds are being allocated for these proposals; every year, nothing gets
done except the dissipation of public funds.
The
budget law is enacted in the name of the people, yet done in relative secrecy,
with the entire budgeting process hardly benefiting from people participation.
During congressional hearings, congress invites resource persons (mostly
department heads), with nothing much to contribute but to flatter their bosses
and to legitimize the process. Congress hypes up the annual budget as pro-poor,
but the money bag ends up being fodder for corruption that, as Pope Francis
puts it, is being paid for by the poor.
And
yet, even as thieves run the government freely, people do not mind. In fact,
they elect them to office each time there is a vote. (There had been spasmodic
exceptions when controversies as naked as the Talipandas scandal had led to the
prosecution and eventual imprisonment of a few. However, this was all for show.
They soon got themselves out of jail, and the voters tapped them on the back
with a fresh round of electoral mandates.)
It
is therefore not enough that people own their issues. They must also understand
what causes them. Everyone can relate to social problems about poverty,
criminality, peace and order, etc. But not all may know that people themselves
contribute to the unmitigated recurrence of their issues by voting to office
the same people who exploit the system to their advantage.
Changing
the status quo faces a dilemma. Who can initiate political reform? The
people—who are beholden to patronage politics? Or their representatives in
government—who benefit from the dysfunctional system and therefore would have
interests in keeping it from breaking apart at all costs?
Even
if voters get to change the roster of incumbent politicians every election year
if the latter do not grow a conscience, the system as it works now will
continue to thrive because it has grown to become the ogre that never dies.
Change can be initiated only by those who have the willpower, the courage, and
the integrity to educate the people on what keeps them from understanding and
owning their issues.
This
can happen when political reform gets the people involved in identifying,
defining, and debating their issues. When there is genuine people participation
from the time public policy starts taking shape to the time it gets implemented
on the ground, people become duty bearers as well. Arresting lawlessness, for
example, is best left to the police. But a process where people co-own the
problems of criminality is established when the police get the communities
involved.
When people own the law, that law becomes self-executing. That law does not need complex monitoring structures by which the progress of its implementation would be measured; it does not require costly graft-ridden government bodies for control, regulation, and oversight.
After four years
of being involved in community organizing work, three years of which were as an
NGO worker, he decided that he himself or Junie should run for a political
office by which he could at least test the application of the ideas proposed by
Citizen’s Congress.
While Boy Deo had
brainpower, Junie had charisma; Junie also had academic training in politics.
They decided that Junie had better chances of winning electoral contests.
The stars seemed
to be coming together for Junie. His father’s sacrifices as a slave in Joey’s
household are now being reciprocated by Joey in many forms. The greatest
strategic value by which Junie was able to leverage his association with Joey
was the connection he built with some wealthy and influential families in
Manila and, more importantly, the implicit support he got from Makatigbas and
his allies in the military.
Endorsed by Joey,
and with financial support from his father, Mr. Ty, Junie ran for Sangguniang
Kabataan representing Barangay Penoy in Cerrito and won. He later became a
member of the City Council of Manila as Sangguniang Kabataan Federation Chair.
Three years later, in the Barangay Council election, Junie ran for Barangay
Chair and again won.
Junie conceded
that apart from Joey, pal Boy Deo was the secret weapon he could not live
without as a budding politician. All these years the latter had been his
confidant, tutor and, as he launched his foray into partisan politics, adviser.
Not only that, given his popularity among urban poor communities, Boy Deo had
in no small measure helped win the votes for him. Boy Deo was the key reason
Junie was confident of winning more political wars ahead.
Soon it was time
for the dynamic duo to get to work, not just in words, but in deeds as well.
While Junie was the brand behind the idea, Boy Deo was the mouthpiece behind
the brand’s promotion.
With Boy Deo
holding the baton of the orchestra, Junie established a legislative mechanism
that applied the basic structures of Citizen’s Congress. For the first time in
Philippine history, here was a political unit where citizens themselves wrote
the local laws, including those that prioritized barangay expenditures and
mapped the medium-term development agenda of the barangay.
A first in
Philippine governance, Barangay Penoy adopted OnePenoy, a web-based portal,
where government agencies pooled their resources together, especially
databases, for the operation of Citizen’s Congress. OnePenoy leveraged data
from the Commission on Elections, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the City
Social Welfare and Development Office, the Department of Health, the Land
Transportation Office, among other government agencies, to qualify barangay
constituents who could participate in the online deliberation, and vote on the
approval of barangay legislation.
Three years later,
glowing feedback from Junie’s constituents had made the rounds among media
outlets. Aside from seeing physical results of good governance—as indicated by
less amount of public funds that were lost to corruption, or expenditures that
truly responded to the needs of the community—people took pride in saying that
they had been transformed from being mere subjects to decision-makers. The joke
among Manila residents was that people had planned their mass transfer to
Barangay Penoy to experience some kind of liberation from the rotten politics
that persisted in their own barangays.
People thought
Junie was not only a visionary; he also showed promise as a problem solver. At
the City Council, he proposed accreditation of sidewalk vendors with the
Community Affairs Office of the city government to facilitate regulation and to
ensure that they did not obstruct vehicular traffic and pedestrians. He also
proposed amendments to the Zoning Ordinance to promote the interests of the
city government while minimizing displacement among the urban poor and
providing them access to alternative sources of livelihood and resettlement for
those whose relocation was necessary.
Support for his
vision for a city-wide Citizens Congress and an operations hub upscaling
OnePenoy to OneManila snowballed.
He was elected to
the Manila City Council for three more terms until 2010. With Boy Deo by his
side, advising and campaigning for him, Junie won Manila’s Vice Mayoralty seat
in 2013 as an opposition candidate. Sir Dikomo, running under the ruling party,
also won as mayor. Three years earlier, in the 2007 presidential elections,
Benaobra won, reclaiming Malacanang after his party lost it in 1992. His
vice-presidential candidate, Bonggoy, son of former Manila Mayor Watkasing,
also won. Reg Makatigbas was on the final half of his six-year term as senator.
All three—Sir Dikomo, Watkasing, and Makatigbas—were Benaobra’s allies.
With the results
of the 2010 elections as backdrop, political analysts turned their attention to
Lee Tan. Most of them were one in saying that the billionaire kingmaker would
discreetly support either Makatigbas or Sir Dikomo for president in 2016. They
also opined that the rise of Junie could not be ignored even at the early stage
of his political career.