The Kapitan: Principal Frontliner

The Kapitan: Principal Frontliner

Growing up, I can't remember any single encounter I had with the local chieftain called "Kapitan." While I had heard his name a few times in adult conversations, I never caught sight of him, not even once. 

It was only as an adult that I would find myself face to face with one, not counting election season when politicians routinely went around the barangay to court voters. 

To recall history, the word barangay is from balangay, meaning a boatload of people, or village. As a former long-time resident of Barangay 201 in Pasay City, I was forced to visit the barangay hall one day when someone threatened to evict me from my place using words that I thought were criminal. The barangay officials helped me enter the names of the perpetrators in the police blotter and I told my harassers so, forcing them to retreat with tails between their legs and even a quick apology. 

Other instances involved other crimes. One time, some shady character cased my residence in the middle of the night, obviously an attempt at forcible entry. Then another time, I was unceremoniously greeted at the front of the house a gift I had never wished for: a plastic bag of trash, deposited by a mystery Santa several days in a row! 

At the barangay hall, the people were accommodating as I humbly asked assistance while trying to take control of my wrath. Could they help me find out the generous giver of early morning gifts? The staff promised to monitor my place. I was thankful that the mystery criminal stopped, though I was not sure why exactly.

Nobody writes about barangay captains, and perhaps no one cares that much about them because of their low stature in the whole scheme of things. Which is strange because, as I began to understand after joining government service, they are the face of the Philippine government at its most basic level (except perhaps for the Barangay Kagawad unofficially assigned to supervise on the sitio or purok level). They are the first frontliners. So, of course, I've decided to give them the focus they deserve.

When I came back home in Pangasinan, I suddenly had an intensified knowledge of the existence of the Punong Barangay because I personally knew someone sitting as one right in our barangay. 

Apart from that, my first personal encounter was at the Municipio, when I joined some DSWD people on their longish ride to faraway Brgy. Pantol to cover their turnover of a big poultry project worth hundreds of thousands of pesos, and along the way had to suddenly make an unannounced courtesy call on the kapitan at his residence. The simple gesture, I would instinctively gather, was a gesture of respect and deference to his authority. It didn't matter that the kapitan was dressed in house clothes and even came out unshod. Apparently, a capitan was not someone to be bypassed lightly, or there would a breach in protocol.

In one talk by our former municipal administrator, I learned that the power held by the barangay captain is vast and even greater than that held by the kings or queens of England. Why? That's because the kapitan, it was explained, is the village's chief executive officer, chief legislative officer, and judiciary rolled into one. Though vastly limited as well by his small area of responsibility, I don't know of any position with that unique combination of powers in a world where democracy holds sway and balance or distribution of power is the rule, with the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches having co-equal stature and each having the power to check on potential abuses of the two others. 

Since then, I saw the kapitan with a whole new set of eyes. Then as now, he (or she) is practically the king (or queen) of the village! His name has changed a number of times through the vicissitudes of history, from teniente del barrio to cabeza de barangay, then to barangay chairman and barangay captain or capitan del barrio or kapitan del barangay, down to Punong Barangay (PB) as renamed by the Department of the Interior and Local Government per Local Government Code by the time I became more aware of their existence in 2016. The kapitan, now affectionately called 'Kap' in our place, remains the ruler of the barangay, his power emanating from the voters, the barangays residents. 

But even as king or queen, a kapitan is expected to possess the common touch, in order to be effective. After all, he/she is the people's chosen representative.  

Their lowly position, furthermore, can easily fall victim to political machinations, and they must constantly navigate the complex dynamics of relationships in such a stature-conscious and politically charged landscape of human behavior. Simply put, as a public servant, he/she is obliged to serve anyone, no matter their affiliation.  A knowledge of and experience on the art of diplomacy should work wonders. If that fails, then plain old plastikan would be useful as well. 

A little further study would reveal that the kapitan has the following as sworn duties: serve constituents by providing basic services, including public safety and security, emergency services, environmental protection, and social welfare services. As though that's not enough workload fit only for a beast of burden, their actual work sked is 24/7. Fortunately, he is aided by his 10 Barangay Council members, namely 7 Barangay Kagawads, 1 Sangguniang Kabataan Chairperson, 1 Barangay Secretary, and 1 Barangay Treasurer, plus Barangay Health Workers, Barangay Nutrition Scholars, and Barangay Peace and Security Officers (tanod).

If the family is the basic unit of society, then the barangay is the basic unit of government, with the barangay captain as its head. For this reason, it turns out, the barangay is itself an LGU or local government unit just like the municipality or city or province. 

Sometimes, I also had to sit through longish meetings held by the mayor for all of the 77 PBs of our town. But it was only when the covid-19 pandemic struck that I intensely felt the beneficent presence of the barangay hall. Unable to move out of the house and out of the barangay, I personally saw how they helped cascade and implement national laws and municipal ordinances and other rules to the grassroots, from the usual ones down to crowd control, quarantine, isolation, and how they distributed ayuda or any form of assistance (from cash to free lugaw or rice porridge to a few days' worth of food packs), and so on. 

Barangay officials and staff, under the PB's order, also particularly came in handy when my father died and my family  needed help with rushing him to the hospital and then later for the wake and the burial; when someone in the neighborhood was polluting the air through charcoal-making or wanton trash burning or asthma-inducing chemical sprays; when somebody's dog took a dump right in front of the gate or scratched some kid or worse; and when there was a need to check for dengue-carrying mosquitoes or incidence of malnourishment among resident children. The kapitan also made speeches during barangay or sitio-wide Christmas parties. Most especially, the barangay can be relied upon for help during assorted emergencies, such as during flood or when your home is intruded upon by a gangster tambay, burglar, or drug-addled man clutching a shiny knife in his hands (it actually happened to us). 

Announcements from the Municipio, such as details about an incoming medical mission and ayuda distribution, are also routinely relayed by barangay people. 

The barangay is crucial, therefore, in the delivery of basic services to target demographic. The basic local government unit, I have also discovered, is particularly powerful in terms of selecting who should receive certain benefits from the government or other entities, whether the recipients be senior citizens, PWDs, OFWs, displaced or disadvantaged workers, indigent families, minors, and the like. After all, who knows the barangay residents best but their own friendly neighbors? 

I've noticed that barangays regularly conduct barangay assemblies, and I think it is a good opportunity for residents to attend them to voice their own concerns related to life in the barangay. I wonder who actually attend these assemblies and whether the things they air out are actually addressed. I myself would've raised the lack of a proper drainage system in our place, for one, and the lack of a decent children's playground, for another, knowing each barangay has a budget for infrastructure and some such allotments. 

It pays to be friends, or at least on civil terms, with our barangay officials and staff, especially with the kapitan. After all, no matter what ivory tower we live in, they are indispensable because we Filipinos are all taga-barangay (barangay residents); we are all constituents under the "catchment area" of our barangay captain.