The Other Side of the Coin

by: Ma. Andrea Erin E. Ramos

There is a story for every storyteller.

There are two sides to every story- the seen and the unseen or the heard and the unheard. This Blog Entry #2 contradicts the respondents from my Blog Entry #1- “The Top 3 Most Common Issues and Concerns around Pulilan, Bulacan,” which reveals that on problems they named, the centerpiece is the incompetence of the community officials. Yet, the flip side of the coin will unfold in this blog.

My two respondents for this blog were both Sanggunian ng Kabataan (SK) officials of Brgy. Poblacion, Pulilan, Bulacan, a council meant to represent the youth. For them, the residents were to blame for these issues, citing “lack of discipline”.

Name of the respondents	Problems in Poblacion, Pulilan, Bulacan
​1. Ryme Tiempo (from Blog Entry #1) -student	​I have 2 issues of concern in our community. The first one is collection of our waste. Before, waste used to be collected every other day or once every three days. But now, they would only collect once a week and there are even times where the trash was not collected for almost 2 weeks. This resulted in to the accumulation of trash which gave a foul smell after a while. The second concern is that there are just scheduled days on when you can get certain paperwork from the barangay. It concerns me because what if the person that needs the documents have an emergency that badly need those papers but cannot do so because it was not the day that the papers he need would be released.
1. Harvey Arceo (from Blog Entry #2) -SK Chairperson	​Bilang SK ng Poblacion, isa sa mga isyu or problema na nais kong bigyan ng pansin sa aming komunidad ay ang “proper segregation of waste” o ang tamang pagtatapon ng basura sa labas at loob ng bawat bahay ng mga pamilya dito sa pulilan dahil aking napapansin na hindi masyadong nabibigyan ng pansin ang problema na ito at mga karadgadang programa sana patungkol sa pag-aalaga sa ating kapaligiran dahil ito ang isa mga na-neneglect ngayon ng karamihan. Hindi napagtutuunan ng pansin ang mga ganitong bagay at masasabi mo na maayos ang isang komunidad kung may maayos na disiplina ang mga tao pagdating sa ganitong mga bagay.

Who was really to blame for our community woes? Is this a case of blame-shifting? Hmmmm…

As stated in the table above, the issue regarding proper waste disposal was raised by two of my respondents from Blog Entries 1 and 2. Hence, two-point of views was revealed. One is from ordinary people and the other is from a local barangay official.

About Mr. Arceo's primary concern in the community, he pointed out that people living in Poblacion give so little attention to issues like this. Moreover, according to him, Poblacion's bright future can only be achieved when one's goodwill and intention bloom into a refined and disciplined people that are concerned with issues like this, such as the proper segregation of waste.

Going back to my high school years, I remember my father going to our barangay hall to raise the issue concerning waste disposal in our street. There came a circumstance where we had to endure the awful smell of the undisposed garbage bags that were already out for several days. Unfortunately, one local government official told my father that the problem had already been discussed. He also confessed that they lack funds and could not provide more garbage trucks to collect the waste or garbage bags consistently per week.

This case shows that no matter how close or similar a problem was told, the storyteller has their own villains to blame and side characters to neither support or balance the conflict from each side of the story, and we, the audience, judge the stories and choose what or who to believe from here.

Name of the respondent

Problems in Poblacion, Pulilan, Bulacan

1. Daryl S. Gabriel (from Blog 2) - SK Kagawad

Strict implementation of curfew. Whether pandemic or not I strongly recommend to have permanent curfew in barangay poblacion because it will prevent the kids from walking and strolling within the barangay in the middle of the night. It will also reduce the crime rates in our community if there's a barangay police checking our vicinities from time to time. Last but not the least, it will make our people disciplined and responsible by means of following an ordinance.

Moving on with the other concern raised by Mr. Gabriel, he proposed to have a permanent curfew in Poblacion. He believed that if the barangay police officers checked our vicinities from time to time, it would reduce street accidents and crime rates during the dead of night. Additionally, he pointed out the “kids” roaming in streets, which made his statement that kids these days lack discipline as they do not follow any ordinance.

Overall, every problem raised by ordinary people or by local barangay officials had its firm stance. However, I believe that the correct usage of government funds and without their absence in times of need will give us the assurance to put our trust in them and even give them our full support when they need our cooperation. Furthermore, we rely on our leaders who possess such power for helping us and maintaining a good community, but whom do we depend on when all they care about is power and not us?

“A leader's job is not to do the work for others, it's to help other figures out how to do it for themselves, to get things done and to succeed beyond what they thought possible.” – Simon Sinek

all pictures used are from Pinterest**