Enable Volunteers and Barangays for Real Bayanihan: The Covid Experience

When I first read the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, officially designated as Republic Act No. 11469, the main thing that struck me was its apparent lack of consideration for what could possibly be a movement or movements of volunteers that would be ready to help out in the generation and mobilization of resources to help those most in need under quarantine conditions.

Coming on the heels of the Taal eruption where the nation saw a deluge of citizen assistance for government relief efforts, one can only wonder why the public sector seemed to have been unable to learn its lesson on the Filipino passion to engage in real Bayanihan. Unfortunately, nothing in the Bayanihan Act suggests the need to enable citizens to help out.  

Indeed, the Bayanihan law was enacted in March 2020 merely to grant the President additional authority to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the Philippines and not to harness volunteerism nor create social cohesion. It only enabled the Presidency to securitize the approach in addressing the pandemic by unduly underscoring military and police control over the citizenry. Tragically, the Bayanihan Act does not live up to its moniker. 

Even as the quarantine dragged on, there has only been a belated and lukewarm recognition by national government of voluntary efforts under the pandemic.

Bayanihan, Collaboration, and the “Private Sector”. It can be asked then, can government do what needs to be done without volunteer efforts and the private sector? For instance, the government’s organization of Task Force T3 (Test, Trace, Treat) is a public-private collaboration with support of the Asian Development Bank, the Philippine Red Cross, Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation and private healthcare providers from AC Health (of the Ayala group) and MPIC Hospital Group (Pangilinan-led),and Unilab.

Task Force T3 was set up almost two months after quarantine was imposed to “boost testing capacity from an average of 3000 to at least 30,000 tests a day.” Information from these tests will be the basis for further government actions and decisions. This collaboration is a positive development in our national battle against Covid.

Aside from Bayanihan, collaboration has been one of the magic words in many exchanges in online discussions on fighting Covid. The magic of collaboration and bayanihan can be seen clearly expressed in the various initiatives of the private sector to help communities from the start of the quarantine. This “private sector” is constituted by both profit and non-profit organizations that come in various forms — civic organizations, non-governmental organizations, neighborhood or community associations, faith-based organizations (the non-profit subsector), and even business corporations (the profit subsector). Under many instances in the past and now in the pandemic, many of these organizations have been doing more than is expected of them by society.  

Having been involved in many non-government networks and an active netizen, I clearly saw how many private groups and networks immediately sprung to volunteer action under the quarantine. Hence, with a small team of my research assistants from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, I developed an online survey that looked into this overwhelming flow of activities from volunteers.

Let me share here some initial findings and observations we have from 22 sample cases (groups) gathered online from May 11-16.  

About a third of those who responded were organized or set up specifically in response to COVID19. They were “newly formed.”

Most of them have been dependent on donations from their own fund raising activities. In turn, most are providing assistance in three forms—distribution of “in-kind donations” (e.g., groceries or food items, and medical protective gears); direct financial subsidy; and, “other humanitarian assistance” (counseling for mental health concerns; provision of contacts and information; and, provision of temporary housing or transportation services).

In terms of networking, most have partnered with other private groups and local governments. Some consciously avoid dealing with national government units or agencies. At any rate, more than half of them have seen no need to deal with the national government and they would prefer to be left alone.

These twenty two groups have provided direct assistance to tens of thousands of mostly needy individuals in Metro Manila. They have been filling a significant portion of the gap in the government’s Social Amelioration Program under the fight against Covid. 

Moreover, in their own way, these groups have been helping the local economy by engaging non-volunteer or hired hands. About a fourth of them are doing so. Moreover, for their supplies, most are sourcing and partnering from local producers or suppliers.

Considering these, I argue that the government has been remiss in fully harnessing the overwhelming energy and drive of the general public, in particular the private and voluntary sector to share what can best be described as the Filipino sense of bayanihan.  

I and my research team have also queried the respondents regarding their ideas on how the government should be dealing with volunteer efforts under conditions like this pandemic. Their answers have been most insightful.

Government must pro-actively enable the private sector to better provide assistance and voluntary services especially to our most needy citizens. In other words, government must help people help themselves. Our leaders can do this by:

1. Openly encouraging volunteerism and truly considering volunteers as partners rather than as the “expression of opposition forces.” The Bayanihan Act could have provided for the recognition of voluntary initiatives;

2. Supporting volunteers’ efforts, through: (a) the provision of means of transportation and other logistical support; (b) The provision of technical know-how or advice; and, (c) facilitating the procurement of needed supplies as well as the release of permits and passes;

3. Waiving or at least simplifying registration requirements for volunteer groups, and relaxing restrictions on fund raising;

4. Not “politicizing” volunteer actions by promoting or passing off their assistance as being those of certain politicians; or by tagging non-government efforts as moves of the “opposition”;

5. Continuing to tap private sector human resources for government activities;

6. Coordinating volunteer efforts to maximize their impact on our communities; and,  

7. (this relates directly to the previous proposition) Putting in place an information, education and communications campaign that particularly complements and highlights volunteer efforts.

Towards a New Normal and Stronger Local Governance. Our PUP sociology team’s probing of particular respondent-volunteers and their engagements with local governments has also exposed crucial weaknesses in our local governance units. There is a need to enable all barangays so that they can perform as the Local Government Code of 1991 envisioned them — with able Barangay health workers. 

Looking at the Barangays beyond the quarantine period , we can start rebuilding our health system by strengthening our BARANGAY health programs and units and making them more responsive and inclusive.

 

Among others, the so-called “new normal” should mean open and pro-active LGUs that can forge partnerships themselves with various private and non-government groups.

To the dismay of many volunteer groups, LGus could not even provide maps of needy areas or a reliable directory of their constituents. Community-based monitoring of development concerns—such as the poverty situation—is sorely lacking thus, one can only wonder then on what data and information do many of these LGUs—the Barangays and cities—base the plans and decisions that they have to make.

 

Very clearly, in local governance at least, much of the new normal is what we should have had prior to the pandemic. Much of the new normal should have been the old normal.

 

In closing, I wish to share a very interesting line from a paper entitled Social Cohesion vs COVID-19 from the Ateneo Policy Center. The authors of the paper, Manuel M. Dayrit and Ronald U. Mendoza, argued that: “Controlling the spread of communicable diseases within and across borders requires strong social cohesion, or a unity of purpose around this collective action challenge. In fact, the world’s response to COVID19 reflects how prepared different nations really are at both international cooperation and national collective action, the two main ingredients of social cohesion that will be necessary for effective crisis response.”

 

National collective action? National collective action means collaboration or bayanihan, if you will. Collaboration builds trust, and trust leads to more collaboration. Collaboration requires a modicum of trust. Government should first acknowledge then and trust that our people will deliver. They do! We do, as we have shown here. It is government that has faltered. However, it is not too late yet. We have only just begun, as it were.