Subsidiarity rules

IF there is one thing that stands out in this coronavirus pandemic, it is the crucial role of local government units (LGUs) and the active and latent performance of the local chief executives. The latter cannot hide from the public glare when constituents are needing assistance whether that be food, service, transportation and sometimes, even work. As has been pointed out, time and time again, constituents need to feel the presence of government. It is during these times that leadership is vital in order that there is order and communities are helped in the process of containing the spread of the virus.

When the national government is hard to move and the protocols are cumbersome, it is up to the local government to design a path that would lead to action. The action has to be directly responsive to the problems needing solutions. When national government invokes “granularity of data,” it only means the aggregation is based on local numbers. That is why it is fundamental to use pandemic data a year ago to roll out vaccines. It cannot be that vaccines are equally allotted to the 17 regions of the country since the degree of infection is not the same.