Ningas cogon, dugyot and korupsyon

DOCTOR Michael Canto had a point when, perhaps out of frustration from weeks of overcrowding at the Region 1 Medical Center due to the relentless entry of dengue patients particularly children, he said in a television interview last week that the increase in dengue cases may be partly due to ningas cogon among the people who fail to keep their surroundings clean and free from stagnant water where mosquitoes carrying the virus can breed.

He is right that the people in the communities are partly the problem. But the bigger responsibility rests on the local government units, especially the frontliners: the barangay officials. In the battle against dengue, and in general maintaining a clean environment within the village, barangay officials have the duty to lead the people through information campaigns, implementation of waste disposal policies, carrying out clean-up drives, and initiating programs that will encourage community participation as well as punish those who put everyone else at risk by their unhygienic practices.

Barangay officials, particularly their leader, the kapitan, cannot escape accountability by citing the absence of funds as alibi. Fact is, barangays have their share of the internal revenue allotment (20 percent of the total IRA from the national government is allotted to the more than 41,000 barangays in the country) plus their income from various taxes and the mandatory financial aid from the provincial and city/municipal government.

It boggles the mind how barangay officials can take the matter of sanitation for granted because they themselves with their families live right within the community they serve. It’s not just ningas cogon, it is also a problem of being dugyot, originally an Ilocano word that has become part of the Filipino slang vocabulary which means a state of being untidy, and an issue of korupsyon where we can see how at the very base of governance, our public officials are wont to steal, divert or misuse the people’s money.

 

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Public opinion matters

THE great debate on the controversial Reproductive Health (RH Bill) is on. Our legislators have begun digging deeper foxholes for a long contentious and acrimonious debates.

This early, Sen. Vicente Sotto III, the Senate majority leader, minced no words in attributing the intense support for the bill to commercial interests.  Listen to Sotto: “We find groups, NGOs, pharmaceutical companies or business interests behind the bill…so, this adds to our fears.”

Senators Pia Cayetano and Miriam Santiago, on the other hand, would not be intimidated or be detracted from their avowed mission to fight for better maternal health and responsible parenthood for this and future generations.

How the debate will end will eventually rest on the strength of pubic opinion for either position.

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