While the governors and mayors are away campaigning  

The campaign period has not officially started, but if you tell me that the mayors and the governors have not yet begun campaigning, I would tell you: Tell that to the marines. I was not born yesterday. Politicians do campaign every minute of their political life. They even campaign in their sleep and in their dreams. Politicians are voraciously addicted to campaigning. And so, while they are out of the office, what are the underlings and subalterns doing?

Many of the capitol and city hall personnel, especially the heads of the different departments are always late, coming to the office at ten and going home at three or even after lunch. Only the rank-and-file, the casuals, the job order workers and the contract employees report devotedly on time. The middle managers always have excuses: they have breakfast meetings, lunch meetings and even dinners, not to mention the merienda in the morning and that in the afternoon. They just go to the office to sign documents, give instructions and meet some chosen, big-time people, or the VIPs.

Many of those left behind to man the ramparts are without direct supervision. They are underpaid, overworked and underappreciated. That is why most of them are ''suplado'' or “suplada.” They do not have simple courtesies. They do not even look at people directly. They make people wait and line up, and there is no special care for the seniors, PWDs and pregnant women. The taxpayers and those paying their dues at the Treasurers' offices are made to wait as if they are not the sovereign people. The underlings behave as if they are not the public servants. These are the small subalterns who sabotage the good image of the mayors and the governors.

Even if you say that our governor or mayor is always caring but his or her people down the line are discourteous, uncaring, even very hard to deal with, then everything is laid to waste. The mayors and the governors are judged on the basis of how the people deliver services. The people may not have the chance to have direct interaction with the chief executive of the province and the city and thus, they evaluate the effectiveness of their mayors and governors on the basis of how the underlings treat them. That is what I call the tyranny of the underlings.

And so, mayors and governors, look at your own house. Evaluate your own people. Your greatest enemies are not your political rivals. Your enemies are inside your own offices. They make you look bad. Gid rid of them or give them a guru to mentor, counsel and coach their ranks. There are ways by which their behavior can be turned around. But it needs a world class expert to make that happen. There are solutions looking for the problems, if you have the problems looking for the solutions. Better do it now or regret later.