Press Release
May 20, 2009

Loren cites Obama as model to barangay leaders

Senator Loren Legarda has urged barangay leaders to draw inspiration from the community organizing skills of US President Barack Obama in realizing their projects, goals and aspirations for their respective communities and constituents.

Speaking before the 2nd National Convention of the Liga ng mga Barangay sa Pilipinas held at the SMX Convention Center recently, Loren cited the need to strengthen the community organizing efforts of barangays.

"With community consensus, the barangay leaders will have more leverage in discussing projects and programs with the mayor or governor," said Loren.

"You have to remember that the current president of the United States of America, after graduating from Harvard Law School, got his first job as a community organizer," she pointed out.

Giving barangays more leverage is one of three proposals Loren made in a bid to ensure that barangays fully attain the needed independence and autonomy they deserve as a grassroots political unit.

"Second is to build an impressive portfolio of grassroots programs. Be it on sanitation, peace and order, revenue generation or sports and entertainment, such program should be innovative and well-studied. You will have an easier time getting support for your programs if they are fresh and creative."

Loren also cited the need to create a network of creative and reform-minded barangay leaders that would attract more attention from the "powers that be."

"In all of the three, the operative words are cohesion, creativity and veering away fro orthodoxy," said Loren, who sponsored Republic Act 9509 or the Barangay Kabuhayan Act.

RA 9509 establishes livelihood and skills training centers in 4th, 5th and 6th class municipalities, boosting job-generation efforts in poorer communities.

"I am fully aware that poor barangays in low-income towns are the real face of poverty and hopelessness and the law is one way of helping them," she said.

In her speech, Loren said that the barangay as a political unit even predates the formation of the Philippines as a sovereign country.

"Before we were a country, we already have the barangays. The balanghays, as our basic political units were called then, functioned as the only formal political authority. The leaders of the pre-Spanish balanghays kept the peace, settled disputes, oversaw trade with neighbors and formed informal alliances for security purposes."

While the present day barangay has come a long way with the passage of the Local Government Code - it being given funding allocations and a voice in government - it has yet to fully attain its potential, she said.

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