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Monday, October 27, 2003
Valdehuesa Jr.: Mismanaging an enterprise
By Manuel E. Valdehuesa Jr.
OUR largest enterprise is the City Government. It is more complex, with concerns more encompassing, than even the largest corporation in all of Mindanao.
Its business is to serve the social, economic and physical well-being of all residents.
Toward that end, the duty of City Hall is to promote the growth of business and industry as well as culture, the arts, and other requirements for an improved quality of life.
Given such delicate and exacting tasks, none but the best managers and the best management techniques ought to run the city, if the enterprise is to be viable and profitable for its stockholders - the people.
The lower divisions of this enterprise are its 80 barangay governments.
Over a hundred million pesos of our taxes go to them yearly -- money that's supposed to develop, secure and make their neighborhoods conducive to healthy and pleasant living. They are all under the supervision of City Hall.
The barangays are the frontline units of our city government -- the units most intimately close to the people. In business, frontline units are pleasant areas, orderly and impressive.
They are the company's reception area, well managed and maintained to ensure a favorable impression. But our barangays are, without exception, miserable areas.
Except for the privately developed compounds in them, their neighborhoods reflect the worst instead of the best style or standard of their residents.
Consider the gateway barangays of Macabalan and Puntod.
Would they impress any visitor or returning resident as our frontline communities? The first-time visitor is bound to feel cheated upon disembarking.
The tourism ads or posters he saw in Manila or Cebu trumpeted the "charm and challenge" of the City of Golden Friendship.
But that's not what he sees on arrival. He sees squalor, disorder and lousy maintenance. This is no way to give the city a favorable image.
What do the barangay officials do with the millions they receive year after year?
Aside from the funds invested by City Hall in their neighborhoods, in addition to pork barrel and other grants, Macabalan and Puntod receive an average of P4 million pesos as their share of internal revenue collections and other taxes.
They also receive 25% of real property taxes collected in their jurisdiction.
And they have less than 3,000 households in their neighborhoods, with resident companies that can help if they're asked.
There is no reason why both barangays cannot become a wholesome gateway or reception area for the city. But not only are they horribly managed, they carry on as if there are no laws or ordinances.
Elsewhere in the city, without exception, the barangays are infested with illegal dwellers.
Even the periphery of the police and fire departments are encrusted with their hovels and refuse.
In the urban barangays, taxpayers can't just park anywhere, but trespassers can - parking their carts and stalls on streets, sidewalks and whatever space they can find.
The barangay officials are turning the city into a squatters' paradise but City Hall does nothing about it.
There is gross failure of management in this city. If this were a half-decent corporation, the top management would have been fired long ago. Good governance is merely another term for good management.
(Manny Valdehuesa is vice chairman of the Local Government Academy and a former director at the Development Academy of the Philippines.Email him at: valdeman_esq@yahoo.com)
(October 27, 2003 issue)
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