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LAST
week we criticized in no uncertain terms House Speaker
Jose de Venecia Jr.’s call for another round of
Charter-change initiatives as counterproductive and
divisive.
Apparently reeling from the brickbats thrown his way for
resurrecting a highly unpopular issue, he has since
called for a “total moratorium on Charter reform,” and
is urging lawmakers to focus on legislation that would
boost economic growth.
We fully
support the idea of Congress—and here we mean both the
House of Representatives and the Senate—devoting “full
energy to advancing the economic agenda.”
We need
reform legislation that will speed up market opening and
enable the country to “catch Asia’s new wave of growth.”
We agree
with the Speaker that legislators should work to “raise
our country’s competitiveness by lowering our costs of
doing business and improving workers’ productivity,” and
that they should build on “our core strengths in
industry and the service sector by striving to become a
hub of global business-process outsourcing, information
technology and logistics.”
And we
are all behind government moves to develop alternative
fuels and energy sources amid rising fossil-fuel prices
in the world market.
We
believe, however, that part of the economic agenda
should be curbing widespread corruption that takes away
already scant resources from the war against poverty.
The legislature cannot simply look the other way while
grafters at all levels loot the treasury with impunity.
While at
this, there’s need to remind one and all, however, that
any politically motivated “revamp,” or one meant to
accommodate cronies or make paybacks, will simply not do
and must be opposed at all costs. Nothing can be worse
than having bad eggs in government as replacing those
bad eggs with worse ones, or changing systems that
aren’t broken or defective, with schemes that pave the
way for shenanigans, all in the guise of “reform.”
That is
why the media and civil society, or those who profess
it’s their job to keep government honest, have the duty
to always look beyond purported reasons for any change
in the bureaucracy or practice, in order to ensure that
vaunted reforms don’t end up making things worse for the
people.
We bring
this up because of the much-publicized call of the
President for the heads of all government-owned and
–controlled corporations (GOCCs) to hand in their
courtesy resignations. Now, no one argues that those
state firms that have drained public coffers or imposed
undue burdens on the people should be the first to be
revamped, perhaps even abolished, or their top officers
changed.
Yet,
here again, there’s a very real risk that the GOCC
revamp is simply a way for the Executive to find means
to pay back those who helped it in the last elections:
such political criterion is the worst possible basis for
choosing people who will run our GOCCs better,
considering how easy it has been to use several of them
as milking cows through several administrations.
This
administration is not exactly known for treating its
best and the brightest with a modicum of respect. The
list of those unceremoniously purged for the flimsiest
of reasons, only to have them replaced by the worst
possible misfits, keeps growing. It has hobbled efforts
to attract good men and women into public service.
Meanwhile, there should be earnest efforts to increase
efficiency in government. President Arroyo has recently
certified as urgent a bill seeking a 10-year extension
of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. CARP is
supposed to end in 2008 after two decades of
implementation, but the Department of Agrarian Reform
(DAR) now wants to extend the program to give it enough
time to fully cover the remaining two million hectares
intended for two million farm workers.
DAR’s
failure to complete CARP in nearly 20 years raises
serious questions as to its capability to implement a
supposedly “centerpiece reform program.” So far, since
CARP started in 1988, DAR has managed to distribute only
seven million out of nine million hectares of land to
four million farmers.
Now it
wants 10 more years to award titles to two million farm
workers and give them vital support services, such as
farm-to-market roads, postharvest facilities and the
like.
Given
this, one can’t help but doubt if DAR, as it is
presently constituted—with a bloated bureaucracy filled
with political appointees accumulated over the years,
and spending precious resources, including billions in
recovered Marcos ill-gotten wealth, with but modest
achievements over the years—is the right vehicle to
emancipate the Filipino farmers from poverty.
Giving
DAR 10 more years so that its underperforming
bureaucrats can go on with business as usual is like
rewarding incompetence and inefficiency. Beyond its
general outline of accomplishments, perhaps DAR should
first give the public a full accounting of how it has
spent taxpayers’ money in the past 19 years before it
begins to ask for more funds for the erratic
implementation of a vital social justice program.
To be
fair, those who champion agrarian reform say the
national government should see the program through to
its logical and just conclusion—indeed, but a deeper
scrutiny is called for to make sure that this time
around, the time and massive resources devoted are
justified by clear, solid achievements. |
