We‘d rather be kapitan than President

Government wants your barangay captain to have civil service eligibility. You know, the requirement for certain government jobs, even when Kap is elected, not hired.

We agree. In fact, why hold elections at all? Let HR hire your kap. Bring a CV instead of voters.

Should even make the rules harder. If Kap must pass an exam, Kagawad must pass two. Man who cleans the barangay toilets should have a master’s. We cannot have people cleaning government toilets without a degree.

What about Meyor? Gob? No exam? Congressman, Senator? No? Why would we require an exam for the President? He only runs the Philippines. Is that even in the Constitution?

To become President, one must be a natural-born Filipino, at least 40, a registered voter, able to read, write, and have lived in the country for at least 10 years.

Imagine being qualified to become President but disqualified from becoming kagawad. You’d have to aim higher!

For if the Philippines is to ever become a nation of competent leaders, we must first make certain the one supervising Miss Gay Barangay is more thoroughly qualified than the one running the country.

The one everyone calls when there’s trouble. Floods, fights, funerals, even things that aren’t his problem. You need a ride to the hospital but there’s no ambulance? You call Kapitan.

You’re lucky if you can even get an appointment to be ignored by meyor and congressman.

Kap may not know the answers to a civil service exam. But he knows you, your mama. Because he lives just down the street. You see him at the talipapa. And, oftentimes, if you’re on a little island far from Manila, he’s the only government you’ll ever see.

That island has only a few hundred families. The nearest hospital is a boat ride away. Signal comes and goes. When the sea gets rough, nobody leaves or comes home.

The people have found someone they trust. Maybe he’s a fisherman. Only finished Grade 4 because, happens all the time in the barrios, people have to eat.

But when the typhoon came, he stayed. When the boats overturned, he went looking. The people want him. But the government says he doesn’t qualify.

Has Manila ever considered what that sounds like to the people who live there?

They have waited years for the government to come. Bring a doctor. Build a school building. A proper pier. “Bring someone to repair the bridge.”

And, now, at last, Manila has remembered them. Not to ask what they need, whether their children are eating, but to tell them what qualifications the man they trust must have.

What a remarkable visit.

Government cannot reach their island, but its rules certainly can.

What if nobody in the barangay qualifies? The whole village will be disqualified from governing itself? Perhaps Manila can send someone who passed the exam and knows absolutely nobody there.

Of course, not every barangay captain is a hero.

The fisherman could turn out to be a terrible captain, become lazy, start stealing, hire every cousin.

That’s democracy. Sometimes we elect a genius; sometimes we elect an idiot. God forbid, soon, we may choose somebody without a certificate, too!

Government cannot allow that. It must protect the voters from democracy.

Surely, it would be much safer if government determined which citizens were fit to be offered to the public.

We could then conduct elections among the approved candidates.

The people would remain absolutely free to choose, provided they choose only from those the government permitted them to consider.