Drug war on top of mind of village chair wannabes

EARLY BIRDS Candidates for barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan positions pack the Comelec office in Manila on Saturday. —MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

The election fever got off to a good start on Saturday as candidates in the barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections made a beeline for the poll offices around the country to file their candidacy papers for the May 14 ballot.

“More people were filing their candidacy papers, surprisingly for the first day,” said Commission on Elections (Comelec) spokesperson James Jimenez.

The deadline for filing certificates of candidacy is on April 20.

Saturday also marked the start of the election period, which includes a gun ban. The nine-day campaign starts on May 4.

Jimenez said that many  poll offices reported that the filing process was orderly, with candidates coming with accomplished forms and documents.

Over 220 candidates from Quezon City’s six districts were the first to show up at the city’s Comelec office. Up to 2,272 barangay and SK posts in 142 villages are at stake in Metro Manila’s biggest and most populous city.

Beating the 5 p.m. deadline on the first day was a complete slate of candidates for both the village and SK elections from Barangay Paang Bundok, led by village council member Michael de Castro, who now wants to serve as barangay chair.

In Manila, around 2,000 had filed their candidacy papers in the six districts of the capital for at least 14,000 barangay and SK posts, said Enrique Santos III, Manila’s Comelec officer.

In Pasay City, 325 candidates from 201 barangays filed their papers for the barangay polls and 70 for the SK elections.

Keeping peace and order, pursuing the antidrug campaign and livelihood appeared to be on top of the candidates’ agenda.

De Castro specifically cited peace and order as his main concern because his village at the boundary with Manila was a “critical area.”

He also wants to promote the La Loma area, part of his barangay, as the “Lechon Capital” of the Philippines to attract tourists and generate more businesses.

Three-term village Councilor Eric Espedillon, who wants to be chair of Barangay 330 in Manila, said he had dealt with drug dependents as a former head of the barangay peace and order council.

“I like to think I sympathize with them more now. We don’t see them just as ‘notorious’ but as productive members of the barangay,” Espedillon said.

Other aspirants, like 72-year-old Miguel Nonles, saw unemployment and the many out-of-school youth as more pressing concerns than illegal drugs.

Nicole Galardo, a 22-year-old schoolteacher, wanted to bring her advocacy for the youth outside the classroom as Paang Bundok SK chair.

Samantha Castro, a 19-year-old elementary education major at National Teachers College, said she would like to be “a role model for the youth” once elected as SK chair of Barangay 70 in Pasay City.

Barangay work is not easy and those who win in the polls must be prepared to make sacrifices, including settling disputes between neighbors, according Ricardo Mejia, a third-generation barangay chair of Bonuan Gueset, a coastal village in Dagupan City, Pangasinan province. —WITH REPORTS FROM JULIE M. AURELIO, JHESSET O. ENANO, KRIXIA SUBINGSUBING, DEXTER CABALZA AND YOLANDA SOTELO