OUT-OF-TOWN sessions for legislative bodies are fine. There, away from the perfumed, sometimes stale, airconditioned offices or sessions halls, one gets to hear the real voice of the hoi poloi, the local leaders, straight and frank.

We commend the sanguniang panlalawigan for this move to have their sessions moving from one district to another, with mayors and perhaps barangay leaders able to not just see their provincial leaders in person but also interact with them. We can’t exactly recall now but sometime during the administration of former Gov. Rafael Colet, there was one such similar undertaking – for sanggunian legislators holding court in the field.

Necessarily, some promises of action and response will have to be made in such face-to-face encounters with constituents. This is the crucial part of the interaction.

Ordinary folk or even barangay leaders hang on to every thread of hope promised them by their chosen leaders in such interactions ; it comes almost like gospel truth. He is a wise elective official who really takes extra pain to at least fulfill part, if not all, of his or her avowed help.

In this, the well-intentioned group of legislators must come equipped with the heart, not just the verbiage, to assure solution where these are needed; simple support where this is most felt. Certainly, the ordinary folk do not expect, for all their simple, unaffected ways, that everything they ask for will come in whole bundles and in an instant.

But the litmus test of their belief – or doubt – on their leaders, and for that matter, government itself, lies in their seeing the men and women who come to them with promises and afterwards exerting real effort to gets things done for them. Such leaders may fail or deliver just partly, but the ordinary folk will see and evaluate sincerity more than the actual delivery – and respond accordingly.

Like we said up front, this move to bring government closer to the people, literally, is the way to go where popular support is vital for government undertakings. You don’ foment a revolution of rising expectations without reaping the whirlwind when these hopes do not come about