Honeyman: Road maps

ONE of the less attractive features of contemporary management culture is the use of jargon designed to impress but which, instead, merely draws attention to the emptiness of what is being described.

It seems that, these days, no corporate executive can say ‘I don’t know’. Colorful alternatives such as ‘It’s just under my radar’ are used as a silly substitute.

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Malacañang’s previous incumbents had their own jargon. ‘Firewalls’, ‘corridors’, ‘hubs’, ‘stakeholders’ peppered the crass and increasingly defensive announcements purportedly supporting the latest corruption-encrusted ‘infrastructure’ project.

Perhaps the most frequently used cliché in recent governance has been ‘road map’. This was used with depressing regularity from 2003 onwards by US President George W Bush and his acolytes in relation to the insoluble Israel/Palestine conflict. The Israelis and Palestinians had nothing in common except, perhaps, for a profound disrespect for America’s Middle East policy. The democratically-elected Palestinian party, Hamas, does not even recognize the right of Israel to exist.

But Bush persisted in using the ‘road map’ to describe the sequence of decisions (none of which have been made) necessary to resolve the conflict.

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And yet the road map concept is valid in principle. In any public sector arena we have massive imperfections and inadequacies. An early requirement of this government is to address the many areas where there are demonstrable shortfalls.

Education is an important target. This is partly because according to Art XIV Sec 2 (2) of the Constitution ‘elementary education is compulsory for all children of school age.’ Few would argue with the concept that if something is compulsory, it is incumbent on the authorities to deliver adequacy. Education Secretary Armin Luistro’s well-meaning, but currently unrealistic and unimplementable policy statement that the time taken to complete basic education would be increased from ten to twelve years has been met with widespread disapproval from a cynical and surly populace. I hope Luistro is neither surprised nor disappointed. It should show him the enormity of the task ahead. It will not be complete before the end of this administration.

But the road map concept is appropriate to the development of a well thought out education process.

Budget Secretary (and former Education Secretary) Butch Abad has given special attention to education in the draft 2011 budget which has now been forwarded for Congressional approval. This special attention takes the form of the construction of 13,147 classrooms and the creation of 10,000 new teaching positions. If approved by Congress and implemented by DepEd, this would constitute a small but significant step in the road map for education.

But education does not have satisfied customers. Parents are angry about shoddy and insufficient textbooks, teacher absenteeism, the quality and relevance of the curriculum and the horrendous physical conditions that have to be endured by their children.

The Philippines has a tendency to sign up to long term international agreements without thinking enough about the courses of action necessary to implement these agreements. For example, the Millennium Development Goal relating to poverty, specified that UN signatories have until 2015 to reduce poverty incidence by half from levels seen in 1990. In the case of the Philippines, this means that poverty should be cut to only 12.5% five years from now. We are going in the wrong direction. From a poverty rate deemed to be 25% in 1990, the data since 2000 shows poverty incidence to be in the range 30-33%, according to the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB).

Poverty reduction is a difficult problem which should be addressed by many departments. But the Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman is clearly in the front line. She recognizes that we shall not meet the UN’s Millennium Development Goal. Her road map must therefore be to at least cause a demonstrably and measurable reduction in poverty. An early step would be to ensure that NFA rice is sold at P18 per kg to those who cannot afford to pay the standard retail price (P40). At present, NFA rice has created an enormous corruption opportunity. This administration can achieve much by blocking the loopholes and ensuring that subsidized rice is allocated to the people it was meant to reach.

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This administration is fond of stating a desired end-point but is lacking in detail as to how this desired end-point can be reached. The road map is still incomplete. We mentioned education. Agriculture is another area with a road map full of blank spaces. Sec Alcala states the obvious. ‘We want to be self-sufficient in rice by 2013’, he intones. Anyone can say that. What is important is how we are going to get there.

The first step is to define the problem. Per capita consumption is increasing and should increase more if the fight against poverty is successful. The population is increasing at over 2% per annum and will reach 100 million by 2013.

To become self-sufficient in rice, therefore, needs enormous increases in productivity. We need substantial and detailed programs related to irrigation and fertilizers-both of which have created notorious corruption opportunities in the past. We need to eradicate corruption. How? People power can help. In the Cordillera Administrative Region, the Concerned Citizens of Abra for Good Government have been monitoring around 30 multimillion-peso road and irrigation projects that support the region’s mainly agricultural industry. For example, in the P200m Hapid Irrigation Project in Lamat, Ifugao funded by the CARP it was found by the Concerned Citizens of Abra that old structures were used Armed with digital cameras to corroborate their findings, trained volunteers produced comprehensive reports to raise quality issues on these infrastructure projects such as sub-par materials, shoddy workmanship and damage resulting from exposure to the elements.

The monitoring reports submitted to the DAR and National Irrigation Administration offices facilitated action from these agencies, resulting in newly constructed component structures and extension canals that are now functioning well.

I believe we shall still be a rice importer in 2013 but hopefully we shall see substantial productivity improvements in this vital industry.
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As always, most of our problems are about corruption. Eradicate corruption and many of our problems are resolved.