PERHAPS many people would not know the difference between “governance” and “government”, often thinking that these two terms are one and the same.
While the definitions of these two terms are subject to interpretation, I would tend to think that “governance” would refer to the act of governing, a process that should involve both the “governors” and the “governed”. In other words, both the government and the citizens should be participating in governance.
This concept of public participation is not generally the norm, because more often than not, many citizens would tend to think that government is the work of the officials who are either elected or appointed into office, and the citizens have nothing else to do, except to just let these officials run the government for them.
In theory, it would be correct to say that we should just let these officials do their work of running the government, because they are in effect our “employees”, based on the legal fiction that we are in effect their “bosses”, because we are the ones who are paying them to do their work.
As a matter of fact, we are in effect the ones who are “hiring” them, as we either elect them or appoint them into office. That being so, it would also be correct to say that in effect, we the citizens actually “own” the government, and therefore it is also our responsibility to see to it that the government is properly managed or administered, as we want it to be, in much the same way that the stockholders of a company would want it to be properly run by its directors and officers.
By way of a joke, we could actually say that the government is too important to leave to the government officials alone, and we should therefore actively participate in the process of governance as much as we could, so that “good governance” would actually happen as we would want it to happen.
Although this notion might sound idealistic and impractical, it could actually happen if we want it to happen, because the legal basis for making it happen actually exists already, except that we are not exercising our prerogatives to make it happen. This is just like saying that the vehicles that could run are ready to run, except that we are not starting the engines yet.
Recently, I was able to talk to a barangay official and he told me that where he resides, the Barangay Assembly (BA) is seldom convened and whenever it is convened, only the Barangay Council (BC) would attend it. It seems that he is not aware that according to the law, the BA should be convened at least twice a year, and what that means is that it could be convened as often as possible, and not just twice a year.
It also seems that he does not know that all registered voters within the barangay have the right to attend the BA, and not just the members of the BC. As it is supposed to be, the members of the BC are duty bound to invite all the voters, but they are not doing it, contrary to what the law requires. (To be continued)/PN
