V. GBM : A PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT The GISING BARANGAY MOVEMENT is an alliance

1. V. • GBM: A PEOPLE’S MOVEMENT • The GISING BARANGAY MOVEMENT is an alliance • of Filipinos who wish to do the little things • in the barangay that together make up • the big things in the nation. • A non-stock, non-profit, and non-partisan corporation registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. • Recognized and accredited by the Ombudsman as a corruption-prevention unit.

2. The GBMConvenorcalls meetings and presides over the chapter, coordinating its activities, acting as its spokesperson, and signing on its behalf. He or she is assisted by a Deputy-Convenor who supervises operations and the work of the committees, as follows: Membership Committee and Secretariat – headed by a Chairman, assisted by a vice chairman. It screens and accredits applicants, issues membership cards, maintains an up-to-date directory, serves as clearinghouse, arranges for meetings, disseminates materials and notices, keeps custody of property, and provides other support services. Education and Field Operations Committee - headed by a Chairman, assisted by a vice chairman. It develops the regime of learning and doing activities needed by GBM, conducts Empowerment Seminars, produces handbooks or training materials, and undertakes outreach operations to expand the GBM vertically and horizontally.

3. Ways and Means Committee – headed by a Chairman, assisted by a vice chairman. It anticipates and works out logistical requirements of GBM operations, raising funds and other resources therefor. Socioeconomic Committee – headed by a Chairman, assisted by a vice chairman.Itplans and arranges for technical assistance for self-help programs and projectsthatgenerate economic benefits and livelihood for the members – in three areas: Agribusiness, Production and Processing, and Skills Development. Culture and Sports Committee, headed by a Chairman, assisted by a vice chairman. It plans and undertakes programs to promote cultural and sports activities: to draw out and identify local talents, to help develop them, and to project them through appropriate events such as concerts, exhibitions, demonstrations, and competitions Finance Officer, assisted by a Treasurer, charged with handling funds and disbursements, accounting for same, and reporting thereon.

4. The GBM Hierarchy It consists of ascending levels of Convenors: barangay, municipal/city, provincial, regional, national. The higher level Convenor handles the task of convening the next lower level convenors in order to coordinate, plan, deliberate, or decide on organizational matters and activities, as follows: BarangayConvenor presides over the zone/district convenors. Municipal/City Convenor presides over the BarangayConvenors. Provincial Convenor presides over the Municpal/City Convenors, Regional Convenor presides over the Provincial Convenors. National Convenor presides over the Regional Convenors Regional Convenors constitute the National Convenors’ Steering Council which elects the National Convenor and a Deputy National Convenor. The Deputy National Convenor shall organize, manage and supervise national committees.

5. Operating Policy Each level operates autonomously, coordinating closely with the level immediately above or below it. The standard hierarchy or command structure shall not apply. Decisions are be made collegially-- by consensus. They are all sovereign citizens! Standing committees at every level correspond to those enumerated above. The barangay chapter is the basic organizational unit.

6. Immediate Objective of the Chapter The main objective of the GBM Chapter is to engage allsectors of the barangay in its governing process. Special focus is on recruiting the usually inattentive citizens: the middle and upper class residents (professionals and the well-off) who generally ignore the governing processes of the barangay and who surrender their sovereignty to traditional politicos, or trapos. It is their absence and inattention that enable the trapos to manipulate the less-educated in the neighborhoods and corrupt them on behalf of the Big Trapos. Their failure to participate prevents the principle of checks-and- balances from operating in the barangay government. It deprives the community of their valuable ideas, insights and experience. In fact their inputs are absolutely needed in the deliberations of the Barangay Assembly, the community’s parliament (supreme governing body). It is the only mechanism for ensuring transparency and accountability at the base of the Republic.

7. A Task Force GBM members are volunteers who can no longer watch idly as unscrupulous trapos dishonor the Constitution and its enabling laws. The GBM, however, harbors no illusion about being a permanent organization with a self-perpetuating bureaucracy. It is not meant to duplicate or, worse, to compete with the duly constituted government and other institutions whose mandates, while echoing the GBM’s thrusts, do not fulfill its objectives. Accordingly, GBM merely promotes ideas and facilitates processes that catalyze constructive citizen involvement in their barangay. This “task force” approach is premised on the recognition that there are already far too many institutions, public and private, that are devoted to ideas and processes the GBM seeks to promote – which are nothing more nor less than those mandated by our laws. But the failure of the government to implement them and civil society to institutionalize them, exacerbated by ignorance and apathy, make it imperative for the GBM to take the initiative until others are sufficiently awakened to perform the task themselves without prompting from others. #

8. Contact Address Gising Barangay Movement 112 Hayes Street Cagayan de Oro City 9000 Philippines or P.O. Box 0496, Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines Phone: (08822) 74-5150