A friend with good background in Public Administration and Law was generous enough to punish me with a 2-hour one-on-one lecture about public governance. It was a very rare learning opportunity though.... and I still remember most of his lectures 5 months later even though it was done over few cans of smb. Now that election time is near,
I feel it is the perfect timing to pass on part of that punishment to my fellow Anahawnons. I am just sorry it is not possible to pass it on together with the smb. :)
Knowing that I have been an employee of several companies, Tito Elzer made a very fine analogy that I can relate to.
Typically in a corporation, we only see employees, supervisors, managers, and the president. We usually do not see the ones who risk parts of their own money or wealth into the company, the stockholders and owners. They are the ones who decide on who should lead the company.
A similar structure also exists in our government setup. In our town we have municipal and barangay employees, maybe managers too, barangay councilors, barangay chairmen, municipal councilors, vice-mayor, and, of course, the mayor. The interesting question now is who among these players are the stockholders using the analogy of a corporation? Same as in the structure of a company, we usually would not see the stockholders in the government's organizational structure.
In this form of government, if Anahawan is a corporation, the stockholders are the Anahawnons. We are the owners of Anahawan and this coming election, we will collectively decide on who to hire as leaders and managers of our Corporation.
It is an easy explanation for me on why our leaders refer to themselves as "public servants". They are here to protect the interest of the public, their stockholders. Sad to say, however, that many stockholders do not understand their rights and responsibilities. In some municipalities in this country, people look up to their officials as the big bosses in town, but not necessarily with respect.
I notice one thing that is common between stockholders and citizen voters. They make decisions based on their own interests: some the greater good, some with noble cause, and some simply "what's-in-it-for-me". As a voter this coming May 2010 Elections, what are you interested in?
"With great power comes great responsibility." - Peter Parker, Spider-Man.
