Magalong new management styles / SM’s private road

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza

Public dialogues have now become literally “environment-friendly.” In Abra, newly installed Cordillera police regional director Chief Supt. Benjamin BanezMagalong holds a meeting with the province’s police support groups and 27 police chiefs, representing the province’s 27 towns under a mango tree.

It appeared to me like an innovation on his part… and an improvement for the PNP.

He troops the line of policemen with Sr. Supt. Roberto Soriano and Abra police director Sr. Supt. Amando Segundo Lagiwid.

After talking with each police chief one after the other, he asks everybody to feel at ease. Then the young police Chief Supt. Magalong who was raised and grew up in Baguio opens his short and punctuated talk saying “Abra is a memorable place for me.”

“I was wounded here,” he tells his co-policemen, relating to them that he was first assigned in the province in 1982 to 1984.

“We suffered a lot of losses in Abra,” he tells them. And why is that? He says, it was because at that time, there was a “failure in community relations.”

I listened at the same time imagined the situation in the 80s. True, the Philippine Constabulary or PC under the stewardship of Gen. Fabian Ver were partly described as the “aggressors” and the NPA had better relations with the barrios because they were the “Nice People Around.”

Magalong then proceeds to convince his flock to “go back to the people and win their hearts.” He asks them to engage with the community. “Talk to people upon coming out from the house in the morning.”

Police work is community-oriented, he tells them, and describes the job in two short phrases: “Think community, think people.
***
In the Q & A portion of the dialogue with an Abra audience composed of the youth, teachers of several schools in Bangued, parents and some from the private sector; someone asks what the police are doing about jueteng and illegal gambling.

A woman complains that jueteng in Abra has really become an incurable “pain in the neck” for family members.

She relates a story that a mother had to deduct a few pesos from her kid’s baon to school, hoping against hope that she might secure hundreds of pesos more just by betting a few pesos on jueteng.

“Anak, buludekpy ta kwartam ta itayaktijueteng ta umadu ta agbalinngatawsan-tawsan.” With such an assurance coming from parents, what can stop a kid from doing the same – believing that a few pesos will multiply a thousand folds in jueteng?

More questions about jueteng are raised which makes him say that it is very clear to him that “people in Abra abhor jueteng.”

Magalong along with Sr. Supt. Joseph C. Adnol engages his Abra audience more, reveals his cell phone number and asks them to send him text messages or call him about their problems on police matters.

“I may not be able to reply immediately but I promise to get back to you,” he assures them. Then he quips: “Yan angnumerongtayaanninyosajueteng.” Will Chief Supt. Magalong’s gambit be an innovation in police management? Let us hope so.
***
In an attempt to improve the lives of his constituents, a local chief executive introduces innovations that are unfamiliar and unpopular. The move seems to be okay as it has not spent or wasted additional money from peoples’ taxes. The next thing the mayor finds out is that he is being sued in court for graft.

After all, what they were saying about the “many ways to skin a cat” was wrong. There is only one way – follow the rules and procedures.

Perhaps those who have wanted to dissect and improve the Philippine Constitution because they are caught in a corner are correct after all. I am certain that hundreds, maybe thousands of local politicians, lawmakers and ordinary citizens like us want to do things but cannot because such moves are not allowed by the Constitution.

As this piece is being written, the Supreme Court is being plagued with hundreds of cases that question the constitutionality of this and that.

On several occasions too, we have seen special agreements being resorted to by and between local government units and government line agencies because these are the only ways by which they can move. However, nothing is permanent.

There has to be some changes and if there is need for constitutional amendments, so be it. In fact the American Constitution that was adopted in 1787 has been amended 27 times as compared to the Philippine constitution that has been revised for only seven times since its first appearance in 1897.

In short, we are limited by the rules. New LGU managers with new management styles find out that they are not flexible with the present set up. They are afraid to move for fear of being charged with graft.

But the world is changing fast and people living on it are hungry for new management styles that match with their modern ways of surviving. Now, if rules cannot change easily, there must be some other way – minus the graft cases, of course.
***
“Apayngay, diba ti road going to SM are all city roads? We question why is SM management only allows taxicabs to enter the complex. Apayngayngaiti jeep ketsaanngamabalinketada met itipasahero a sumang-at ngamapaniti SM. This is purely discrimination by the traffic planners against the jeepneys,” transport head DionyItliong laments.

The transport group is set to meet with TTMC to discuss the improvement of the traffic scheme. Itliongsaid, this in preparation for the influx of tourists in Baguio during the Christmas season. He said he has talked with the SM a management regarding his concern but no action was ever made.

Itliong further revealed that this recommendation to re-study the SM traffic system was also the recommendation of transport officials who often came up to the city. The present system is no longer suited once a heavy volume of motorists come to Baguio, Itliong said.

I say, the plan to re-study the traffic scheme is long-overdue. If I were with the transport sector, I would file a case against those responsible for allotting public roads to become the private road of SM. In fact any private citizen can do that.

At the intersection beside the DILG compound, you will not fail to see a road sign in the middle of the road that says “TO SM ONLY.” Who says a city government can allow a public road to become the private driveway of a private entity?

Truth is, not only is the traffic design running on expired experimental basis – even the city is being run on experimental basis, and we have allowed our city officials to make us their Guinea pigs. – marchfianza777@yahoo.com