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Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were
a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. —Mark Twain
(1835-1910)
NOW that
we have the 14th Congress, what do we do?
Certainly, there’s a lot of unfinished legislative
business in the 13th Congress. But before lawmakers even
start working on these unfinished bills, they should
undergo a change in perspective, a “paradigm shift,” to
make their work relevant to the demands of the times.
Congress
should cast away its insularity, its tendency for
inertia and navel-gazing, which has paralyzed economic
policymaking, and look far greater into the bigger
picture, this fast-integrating and globalizing world.
If
there’s one thing that characterized past Congresses,
it’s the pettiness of the chamber’s politics, and the
total lack of ambition in its legislative agenda.
Hostage to the political-survival instincts of the
ruling party, the 13th Congress, for instance, was
notorious for delayed passage of the budget necessary to
finance development.
With a
thin legislative output, most of the more important
economic legislation necessary for addressing vital
issues, like fiscal rationalization and land
administration reform, were sidelined for reasons that
the public could only speculate upon.
Insularity of outlook, a sort of small-barangay thinking
among many of its members, explains this lack of energy,
focus and legislative ambition. Coming largely from the
landed gentry and rentier classes, many of Congress’s
members view the
Philippines as
an isolated island, no different from their beach
hideaways where they have fun and frolic, blissfully
unmindful of what’s going on in the larger world.
Hence,
while legislators in the rest of the Asia-Pacific region
were preoccupied with sharpening their policies to
maximize gains and adjust to changes brought about by
the global economy, our legislators were busily haggling
over pork barrel, or grandstanding on endless
investigations that led to nowhere.
The
Executive of course was mired in dozens of scandals
(e.g. election cheating, fertilizer scams, the Bedol
affair, etc.), dragging down Congress and other social
institutions deeper into the mire of political paralysis
and social stasis.
And
while members of Congress where preoccupied with petty
bickering, entrepreneurs chaffed at the difficulties of
having their businesses registered because of a tangle
of obsolete rules; locators in some special economic
zones were panicking at the prospect of losing fiscal
incentives promised them when they registered; and the
general public was left wondering whether or not it
would ever have better infrastructure or improved social
services. These sad truths didn’t help our efforts to
attract foreign investments.
The new
Congress should wake up and change its ways of doing
things to make it more responsive to the demands of the
“brave new world.”
Unknown
to many members of Congress, more than 60 percent of the
country’s gross domestic product are accounted for by
the globalized sectors (e.g. outsourcing, electronics,
remittances and the rest of the export-oriented
industries). That means most Filipinos are deriving
money and livelihood from the dynamics of the globalized
world. Focusing legislation on economic issues relevant
to this economic transformation, therefore, should be
the primary business of the new Congress.
Is the
country’s business sector globally competitive? How
should the country respond to the accelerating exodus of
professionals and skilled people? Is the educational
system producing enough graduates with the skills needed
by industry? Is the country’s policy on language and the
medium of instruction helping the fast-growing
information technology sector? Is the policy environment
conducive to interisland trade? Are we unnecessarily
putting barriers to foreign investments? Are we
developing our science and technology capabilities?
These
are among the questions that need to be addressed by the
new Congress for them to be socially relevant. And it’s
encouraging that Sen. Edgardo Angara is one of those
actually responsive to these issues. Recently, he called
for the creation of a congressional committee on science
and technology, an initiative that will surely engender
a lot of soul-searching and rethinking about how we can
sharpen our capability in science and technology.
Congress
should go strong on initiatives like this. It’s high
time it exerts its leadership in the policy arena
because, based on the tone of the President’s State of
the Nation Address (Sona), the ruling party is not so
keen on crucial reforms anymore.
It seems
like Malacañang is going to spread the grease off pork
barrel around (e.g. the construction of bits and pieces
of a highway here, a few bridges there, and some septic
tanks somewhere).
For a
presidency that was bent on bringing us the “hallmarks
of modernity” by 2010, the only economically pressing
economic policy reform that it has proposed is the
reform of the Epira bills to promote open access and
greater competition. What the Sona revealed to us is a
lame-duck presidency that is just coasting along for a
less bumpy transition to oblivion.
Yes, we
believe that Congress could actually take the policy
leadership. The 2010 elections could be a distraction,
but most of the would-be presidential aspirants appear
to be mavericks not likely to benefit from endorsements
from the current political partisans (Arroyo and
Estrada). Hence, there would be more room for
independent initiative and statesmanship.
We are
crossing our fingers, of course. |
