John Jonas explains what a barangay is — the Philippines' smallest political/administrative unit — and outlines its origins, governance (executive: barangay captain/"kapitn"; legislative: kagawad; judicial: Lupon Tagapamayapa), local services (clinics, schools, vaccination, dispute mediation) and community registration. He argues that because the Philippines lacks a unified national identifier and formal background-check industry like the US, a barangay clearance (a document from the barangay certifying a person’s character/residence) often functions as the closest practical substitute for a background check.
Chapters
The barangay, the Filipino neighborhood. So let's talk a little bit about culture. So when Filipinos talk about their neighborhood, they often refer to their barangay, which is the Philippines smallest political and administrative unit. So, just so you know, this is going to be an interesting podcast episode because I don't actually know all that much about the barangay. I know it's. It's kind of similar to in other places where I've been. Like when I lived in Brazil for two years on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they had neighborhoods like this. But I think in the Philippines, it's more established. So most of what I'm about to tell you comes from one of my ofs, who told me all about this recently. And just so you know, there's some words in this that she used that I'm gonna use that I don't really know, but I'm gonna try. So barangay comes from the Malay word balengay, which is a boat used by the first people who migrated to the Philippines. It's kind of like the boat at the end of Moana where they're all traveling to their. You know, they're traveling the seas now. And those who traveled in the same boats ended up settling in the same places, and that community formed the first bar. There are over 42,000 barangays in the Philippines, and they are governed by their respective cities and municipalities. So the barangay is like a small administrative unit, and they're governed by their cities and by their municipalities and by their states. So in order to be a barangay, there has to be at least 2,000 inhabitants. Each barangay has its own executive, legislative and judicial branch. The chief executive is called the barangay Kapitn, and she translates it to barangay captain. Counselors are called kagawad from the legislative branch, and then the judiciary is a group of people called Lupon tagapamayapa. Justice of the peace. I don't really know if I'm saying that right, but most barangays also have their own police system, like a neighborhood watch called Tannade. So local governments empower the barangays to provide services to their local communities. So, like with a barangay hall, you'll often see like, a small clinic where people can come in for free health services or essential vaccines, stuff like that. Voting is also done in barangays. Small claims court and disputes are mediated with the judiciary. The. Let's see, she calls it the Lupon Taga pamayapa. Sorry, I'm probably butchering that and someone's going to yell at me. Most barangays also have like daycare and elementary school. Basically everyone in the Philippines lives in a barangay and everyone is required to register with their barangay. So now let me tell you how this applies to you. So background checks don't exist in the Philippines. Everybody always comes to me and they're like, how do I do a background check on these people? Or like, I have my guy, my OFS is working with sensitive data and there's other people living in his house. How do I do a background check on those people? Like, sorry, there's no such thing. There's no such thing as a background check. In the Philippines, they don't have a unified system. Like in the US we have these Social Security numbers where it gets assigned to you when you're born and then you get tracked by it your whole life. And there's companies that aggregate all of your data from everywhere and really terrible. In the Philippines, they don't have that system, so they don't have a background check. The closest thing that they have kind of is a barangay clearance, which is kind of a government issued document from the barangay saying that this person is of good moral character and they're upstanding and they're acceptable in this barangay. And so you can ask an OFS for their barangay clearance and if they don't have one, they can go get one from the local government and then you can use that kind of as a background check that if they can't get a barangay clearance, then, well, there's probably a problem. I personally have never done this with anybody, but as we've asked and asked and asked my team for background checks, like, how can we do this? They are like, well, you can, you can ask the person for their barangay clearance. That's, that's one of the things that you can do. And so now you understand why that's a possible option. Because the barangay is where they live. It's a small community, requires at least 2,000 people, but usually they're pretty small. So people know each other. And it's not like a small town where there's 500 people where everybody knows everybody, but people still know each other. The barangay, yeah, it.
