Leadership formation towards good governance

Leadership and Values formation  towards good governance

Good governance cannot be achieved without people empowerment.

In our political tradition, it is only during elections that we hold our public officials accountable. And when the fervor of election pass, we then go back to our ordinary lives and disengage – letting the politicians do their own thing. This should not be the case if we want a government that is responsive to the needs of its bosses. That is why engagement with government should be sustained all throughout the term of the leader. It is in this constant dialogue that ideas mature, trust builds and action multiplies. Accountability and transparency should be constantly demanded.

The youth calls on city hall to strengthen these partnerships with civil society by institutionalizing mechanisms of people’s participation in local governance. Though it is already a policy of the state to do so, the local government unit should creatively expand it as what have been done by other LGUs through a People’s Council.

The youth’s role is vital in building strong political institutions. We should be seen as partners and not merely as manpower volunteers. Our experiences engaging with government in meaningful programs posses tremendous formative value. We shift from a mentality of being mere recipients of services to real partners that engage the policy and direction of the community.  

YOUTH POLICY AGENDA

The youth leaders raised the following policy agenda.

1.     Invest in youth profiling and barangay youth organizing and empowerment. The needs of the youth in the barangay level should be identified and prioritized in order to guide the barangay government and the barangay youth leaders in forming their strategic interventions. The city should also invest in capacity buildings for barangay youth organizations that focus on organizational development, engaged citizenship formation and basic political education.

  

2.     Invest in an independent youth leadership formation program that anchors in political education and good governance in public service for youth leaders. The city through the Oro Youth Development Council should also invest in the formation of youth policy-makers. Those youth councilors who sit as representatives to different local bodies should be given skills training on basic policy analysis and making, social advocacy, and basic law.

3.     Creation of a policy on transparency and mechanism for people’s participation in local governance. To ultimately sustain the gains of people’s participation in local governance, the city should enact an ordinance that institutionalizes civil society participation in the direction of the city. These body becomes the official people’s representative to local government which shall then choose who will sit in the different bodies. This is a bottoms-up approach. It is not the executive who will choose who sits as people’s representatives but the people themselves would choose. This is also an entry point for pushing a people’s agenda.

                                                                                                      

ORO Youth Parallel Action

Oro Youth Engaged Citizenship Program

This program has two components namely (1) Barangay Youth Leadership Development Program (2) Oro Youth Political Education Program. The first program provides the organized youth of the barangay resources to help them develop the organization. This includes seminars on strategic planning, needs assessment, project evaluation and monitoring. The OYDC also provides researches on the basic needs of the youth in their particular barangay. The second program provides an educational program to the different youth councilors and local body representatives. This includes policy analysis and policy making, developing social advocacies and mobilizing resources.  

People’s Council Advocacy

The OYDC strongly supports the creation of the Cagayan de Oro People’s Council in order to strengthen and institutionalize people’s participation in local governance.

Public Order and Youth’s role in crime prevention

Public Order and Youth’s role in crime prevention

It is only having a sense of peace and security first where one can then think of developing himself fully. Peace and security is a vital concern raised by the youth leaders during the Oro Youth Leaders Convergence. Security – as defined by the youth leaders is a community that has low crime rates, no gang fights and no drug dealings. Security is also a picture of you stepping out of your house without fear of getting hurt or getting violated. It is also where one can easily get redress of a wrong committed.

The Oro youth leaders emphasized that peace and security is vital in the progress of the city and defining issue for the youth. Victims of crime and doers of crime more often than not are within the age of 15-30. The root cause of crime is complex and multi-dimensional but the youth would like to focus in and subscribe to the theory that the physical environment holds a strong influence in criminal behavior. The broken-windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into more serious crime.

YOUTH POLICY AGENDA

 

As such, the youth leaders outline the following policy agenda: 

1.     The city should expand its Hapsay Dalan operations to other points of convergence and insure safety of parks and other public places. Hapsay Dalan, aside from regulating the flow of traffic also creates a social value for the respect of the basic laws and nurturing a culture of discipline. This, we hope, creates an environment of orderliness and discipline. It is also called for that a component on safety in public places should be added. Hence, as a laudable portrayal of political will and a catalyst for behavioral change, this should be improved and expanded to other points of convergence in the city.

2.     Invest in intensive police and citizen monitoring on known drug-dens, child-trafficking entry points and child prostitution areas, apprehend suspects in accordance with law, and adopt gender appropriate interventions. The people of the city especially the youth should be given appropriate training to spot highly suspicious activities and create a quick-response system. The barangay tanod force should also complement this by organizing citizen crime watch groups in barangays.

3.     The city and the police force should continue to be strict in monitoring bars and entertainment areas especially near centers of learning. The city should be strict in reviewing businesses near schools on their operation and what they sell as required by law. The barangay councils should also create multi-sectoral task forces that monitor the surroundings of schools.

ORO YOUTH PARALLEL ACTION

Hapsay Dalan Youth Advocacy – In partnership with the NSTP of the different colleges and universities, the Oro Youth Development Council would engage in social media advocacy campaigns in the Divisoria area. This also includes disseminating information about the local traffic code. 

Summit on the Role of the Youth in Crime Prevention – In partnership with the PNP, this is half-day summit with different youth leaders around the city. The aim of this summit is to provide the youth a crime situationer, presentation of internet based program created by computer engineering students and action points for the youth to become active players in curbing crime. The summit would also help the groups create their own crime prevention plans in their respective organizations.

Business Establishment Profiling and School Caravan on Ordinance – student leaders from high schools through the In-school youth sector will profile the different establishments near their schools. The data will then be forwarded to the proper authorities for enforcement.

2nd Youth Agenda Item: Sustainable Urban Living and Youth dimension in Disaster risk reduction and management

B.  

Sustainable Urban Living and Youth dimension in Disaster risk reduction and management

Climate Change is no longer an abstraction. It has become personal and real to every Kagayanon. Our horrific experience with Sendong has demonstrated how deadly lack of preparation, knowledge and management is in the face of our mighty river and a changing climate. Disaster risk reduction and management has been consistently surfaced by youth leaders showing the growing consciousness on its primary significance in our daily life today. Rightly so, studies show that the typhoon belt has now descended to Visayas from much-accustomed areas of southern Luzon[1]. This means that Northern Mindanao should brace for typhoons as the new normal.

In response, the government and private sector has invested huge resources not only in the hardware reconstruction efforts of the city but as well as the re-education campaigns on disaster. Though these permanent settlements have been constructed, many still complain that those sites continue to be unsafe[2]. Some do not have access to basic sustainable drinking water and electricity.

After the Sendong experience, flooding and landslides, as mentioned by the youth leaders as an effect of regular typhoons and heavy rains, have become an alarming regularity in several of their Barangays. They have noted clogged drainages and lack of vegetation as contributors. The leaders then traced the root causes of these as lack of implementation of the solid waste management law in part of some barangays, rapid urbanization and cases of logging (legal or illegal) in the uplands.

Realizing the immensity of the challenge, the youth leaders conceded that doing actions for our environment entails a long and slow process of educating our peers about the social and public value of proper waste management and environmental protection. They realized that as government work to fulfill its mandate in enforcing the people’s right to a healthy ecology, the organized youth should include in their advocacies a dimension on environmental stewardship.

YOUTH POLICY AGENDA

During the Oro Youth Leaders Convergence conducted last March 22, 2014, the following policy agenda was surfaced with regards to the environment:

a.     The city should increase green patches in the city center to encourage urban gardening and greening.

The rapid urbanization of the city has led youth leaders to wonder if they will inherit concrete and dust void of any reasonable amount of greeneries and fresh air. They raised the idea that the city should increase greeneries in existing parks. They also raised that idle public lands owned by the city or the barangays in the urban areas should be converted into temporary greeneries, mini parks or community gardens to encourage people to plant.

b.    The city should increase youth-led action and youth participation in disaster risk reduction and management and environmental protection.

The youth should not just be mere manpower when disaster strikes. They should be active players in its preparation and response. Noting the increasing consciousness on disaster management, the youth leaders raised the importance of their participation in making disaster plans and drills. They mentioned that this is not just the business of the adults but more importantly, it is a training and duty for the youth’s part. Flowing from this thought, the youth leaders urge the city to include youth participation in all stages of disaster planning from the city to the barangay and organize youth communities in the barangays that specialize in disaster management. They will be the one to act as influencers for other youths to be prepared and conscious about disasters. These youth communities should also take the lead in greening initiatives in the barangay level.

c.     The city should strictly implement the provisions of the Solid Waste Management Act and empower barangays to manage their own waste

The youth leaders pointed out that it is not enough to simply collect garbage on time. The city should invest in segregation, recycling and other modes of reducing solid waste such as waste-to-energy facilities. Most importantly, they cited the vital role of the barangay as a player in managing our solid waste. The Ecological Solid Waste Management Act or Republic Act 9003 orders all LGUs to decentralize garbage collection. The barangay, the smallest unit of government, is put in charge of teaching residents to segregate, collecting their trash and separating reusable trash from residual trash – the kind of trash that no one will buy or have any use for. The barangays should explore creative ways in improving garbage disposal and observe barangays who are leading in this field such as barangay Macasandig. In part of the youth, the barangay based youth organizations should also lead in advocating these methods.

ORO YOUTH PARALLEL ACTION

Urban Greening Advocacy

The different youth organizations especially the out-of-school youth sector would adopt at least 2 idle land in the Poblacion area to convert it into an urban forest. This acts as a symbolic statement of the youth’s desire to strike a balance between urbanization and environmental protection. This would be a yearlong endeavor where youth from various sectors will personally take care and observe the progress of their garden. Seeing it grow rather than just having a one-day tree planting activity brings greater personal value. It teaches the youth on the basic of gardening, public good and stewardship.

Barangay Youth Advocacy on Solid Waste Management

The organized barangay-based youth organization will be trained in a one-day training of trainers to advocate for solid waste management in the barangay levels. The training is designed to educate the youth community leaders on the basic solid waste law, best practices, and community advocacy work. This is in partnership with the Solid Waste Management Council. Leaders of the various youth clusters and interns of the SPES Oro Youth will also be tapped as the leaders of this community-based movement.

Citywide youth forum on disaster preparedness and management

This one-shot forum will highlight the different initiatives and methods of the city and private sector on disaster preparedness. The youth disaster management communities will also be formed in this forum where they will be the core group which the barangay and the city disaster risk reduction and management council will mobilize and include in the planning processes.

Eco-bag use advocacy 

By virtue of City Ordinance 12440-2012, business establishments are required to pass to the customers 1.00 for every use of cellophane. This is to encourage people to use eco-bags rather than plastic. In this regard, the youth leaders would like to spread information about the law and encourage the youth to use eco-bags rather than plastic. 

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[1] http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2014/01/12/1277812/visayas-now-phls-typhoon-belt

[2] http://www.sunstar.com.ph/cagayan-de-oro/local-news/2012/12/14/sendong-survivors-still-cry-justice-258435