These past few days, I've tried approaching several municipality and barangay officials in the hopes of getting a response. Since it was the campaigning period and most of them were busy, someone has politely declined to do an interview. To be honest, some of them did not respond to or view the request message. Fortunately, two officials agreed to give their statements about the issues confronting the municipality of Calumpit.
It was a great opportunity to interview James Lancelot De Jesus, the SK President of Calumpit, and the barangay Captain, Moises Villena to relate their answers to the respondents from the first blog.
In comparison to the previous survey conducted for the residents of Calumpit, SK President De Jesus’ responses are quite similar to most of the citizens' concerns, particularly those of the adolescents. He addressed the community's issues with the environment, education, and health. SK President De Jesus voiced the matters in the community, particularly with regard to the youths. First, there is a continuous growth in the number of malnourished. Second, is the lack of discipline among the citizens when it comes to garbage disposal. Third, there are indigent students who do not have access to financial support. Regarding to these matters, he was interrogated about the municipal government's actions municipality and he gladly told each of them.
For health matters, he said that the local government is conducting a feeding program for the malnourished every Nutrition Month. The beneficiaries were provided with supplemental feeding and the aim of this program is to zero out the number of people with poor nutrition. In terms of education, he emphasized providing educational assistance to qualified students who have critical needs. When it comes to the environment, he mentioned the weekly clean-up drive conducted within the barangay Caniogan to maintain the cleanliness of the community.
For Moises Villena, the barangay captain believes that now that we are progressively recovering from the pandemic, the barangay's situation that must be addressed has to do with natural disasters such as floods. When he was asked if there were complaints about the same issues, he mentioned that there are citizens raising general issues. In this, he admitted that they were doing sessions and meetings about these matters.
Both SK President De Jesus and Barangay Captain Villena explained the municipality's actions, including the implemented programs and services. The distinctions in their statements reflect on how they dealt and recognized the people in the community. Though they acknowledge some of the matters that were raised by the respondents featured in the first blog, there were still other concerns that were missed out like the problems with the medical facilities and waste segregation. This proves that it's not only the citizen who had a poor approach to the government. It’s also the higher-ups had disregarded to consult the real circumstances that the community that they didn’t notice or know. In the end, it will not change the fact that their perception as officials is completely different from the citizens' expectations.
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