The Voice of the Marginalized: The Issue of Unfair Distribution of Goods to the Citizens of Lingunan

CHOSEN COMMUNITY: Barangay Lingunan, Valenzuela City

Barangay Lingunan is a small community in Valenzuela City. According to PhilAtlas, the population of Lingunan as of 2020 is 24,088 making it as the 3.37% of the whole population of Valenzuela.

Like other communities, this barangay also has its own issues. And since I am currently living here, I chose to do the survey in this community to know the thoughts and opinions of other people.

There were eight respondents to this survey and they are in ages 19 to 21 years old. The respondents were asked about the issue they want to address in the community. The common issue that emerged in the survey was the unfair distribution of goods in the community. Among the eight respondents, there were three persons who stated their reasons why they want this issue to be addressed. There are two reasons that came up:

First, there's an abuse of power in the distribution of goods amidst the pandemic. The two respondents said that people who has a good connection to the officials of the barangay can get more goods than the usual people. It was also stated that the organizers of the project also pockets what should be distributed to the public.

Second, people who can get assistance from the barangay are those people who has an access to the internet only. One respondent stated that before you get the goods you need to sign up in a google form first that was posted in the FaceBook page of the barangay. It is indicated that the assistance was a first come-first serve basis but there's no other instructions given about one name per family. So here, it may happen that there will be multiple names by a single family. That is why in a short period of time they may reach the quota immediately making this aspect is too unfair for others and not all families can get some assistance.

With the data presented above, this depicts how poor and bad the system among the people leading the community. Officials do not give importance to the people who really needs help. They do not think those marginalized in the community because they overlooked the pros and cons of using the internet to know their beneficiaries. Likewise, their guidelines about giving goods to people is not clear enough. The officials didn't put into consideration that members of a family can submit multiple names just to get more goods compare to others. So, it is noticeable that they lack in planning on how to conduct such projects that involves the marginalized.