Gary Pekas
By Estanislao C. Albano, Jr.
The October 22,2010 issue of the Philippine Star had an eye-catching front page item titled “SK national president faces graft raps.” It was my first time to see the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) land in the front page and it is of this unsavory nature. It also struck me that someone so young could be accused of misusing millions in government funds. It did not come as a shock though as the SK is not exactly a lily white organization.
As would be expected, SK National President Jane Cajes made a blanket denial of the charges but if they would later be proven to be factual, it would hardly be surprising. The accusers who are SK members themselves alleged among others that Cajes had made multi-million purchases of goods and services in connection with the national conventions of the organization in the last three years without going through bidding and could not present a financial statement on several occasions. These are common violations in ourgovernment sector and for so long, the SK has been labeled as a venue where the Filipino youth are started young in the wrong direction.
That headline came back to my mind in the aftermath of the recent barangay and SK elections in the province. One of the stories I heard which is not hard to believe was the sighting of one former SK association president leading a flying voter operation. According to the source, the former SK official was the one who was giving chemicals with which some SK members cleansed the indelible ink on their fingers and handing them some money presumably to go back to the polling place to vote another time. I also heard from the same source that in another place in the province, SK candidates bought votesat several thousands of pesos per vote. Then there is this information that some SK candidates with the aid of their parents, of course, had brought the voters they were wooing to resorts the night before the elections.
Looking back at the way some local SK candidates and their handlers handled their campaigns in the recent SK elections, I could agree with Bishop Renato Abibico when he remarked that the only element missing from the way adult candidates in the many areas in this country force their way into power were the goons.
And that’s just the beginning of the ugly exercise in this country called SK reorganization. By the time the results in all the barangays have become known and the incoming SK barangay chairmen identified, the bidding for their votes for the coveted municipal or city presidency will begin. I learned that in the last SK association elections in one place in this province, the currency was in cellphones and in cash.
A government official I have talked to regarding this matter said that it was the infusion of money into the official youth organization of this country by the Local Government Code of 1991 which defeated the very purpose of the organization which is to serve as training ground for youth leaders. He continued that by making the SK barangay chairmen and federation presidents on equal footing with the barangay councilmen and the municipal and provincial legislators, respectively, in terms of salaries and benefits, the government has made the SK officials more interested in the economic side of the position than in value formation and leadership which are the very essence of the organization supposed to be. He concluded that if the budget for the SK from the national and local governments will be removed, no youth will be interested in becoming an officer of the organization any more.
“The rationale of the SK is commendable: to train the youth for leadership. But the involvement of money in the guise of strengthening the organization has made it a breeding ground for corruption,” the official said.
Another government official I have talked to said that with the Local Government Code placing at the disposition of SK councils 10 percent of the internal revenue allotment (IRA) of their barangays for youth projects, the youth officials learn corrupt government project mplementation at an early age.
Bishop Abibico calls that the SK a double whammy. He says: “We do not gain from the SK. We lose money and we lose the youth. What it teaches the youth is foolishness and corruption. We should come up with a legislation that will improve the organization otherwise we scrap it because it only teaches the youth the art of bad politics.”
As for me, my main objection to the continuing existence of the SK is its lack of positive contribution to governance, legislation in particular. I could bet that in most cases, the names of SK ex-officio sangunian members only appear in the attendance part of the minutes for all the years they are part of the council and are earning the same salaries and benefits their colleagues get. No proposed ordinances and resolutions, no committee reports, no nothing.
Indeed, if the government wants to find out if the people are getting their money’s worth from this SK thing, one good place to start the scrutiny are the records of sanggunians all over the country. I could bet that they would find a near zero performance of the youth sector representatives in this respect in perhaps 95 percent of the sangunians in the country. And to think that the SK is supposed to be vehicle for the participation of the youth in governance.
