TAXPAYERS will be spending P12 billion for the Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan Elections today — an exercise naïve idealists say reflects our country's deep commitment to representative democracy on the grassroots level. 'The election of leaders at the barangay level is an embodiment of democracy and community spirit,' a Philippine News Agency opinion writer enthused.

However, there is a dark-side reality to this democratic exercise — as there is to our overall system of representative democracy which every politician worth his salt knows fully well: barangay elections have become a tool for the perpetuation of political clans, or the incumbent mayor and governor's rule.