Wednesday, November 28, 2007 Osmeña: Flaws in government’s cybernetic policies By Antonio V. Osmeña Estatements
OUR form of go-vernment is pat-terned after the United States where government would maximize individual freedom without intruding on the rights of others. They also had to guard against authoritarian takeovers while encouraging the development of land and resources. In other words, the founders wanted to preserve national stability but still allow a range of human choices.
The solution developed by founders of the US was a cybernetic marvel but, unfortunately, Filipino politicians have—for decades—failed to adapt the cybernetic system of government.
Our adopted cybernetic Constitution calls for three major loops and control sub-systems —the legislative, executive and judicial branches—all connected by multiple checks and balances, or negative feedbacks. For the entire system to work, all three branches and the people must cooperate and interact. Checks and balances (corrective feedback mechanisms) are built in to keep one branch from taking over.
One result of this system is that problems are dealt with cautiously and inefficiently and with so many compromises that revolutionary change is discouraged.
The government established by the Constitution was not designed for efficiency.
It was designed for consensus and accommodation as a key to survival. Thus, by staying as close to the middle of the road as possible, the government muddles through crises.
The late Serging Osmeña Jr. and Ramon Durano of Danao were among the few political cyberneticists in our country. The politicians in our government are concerned primarily with growth and expanding the frontier. Thus, although they anticipated most of the major cybernetic principles, the system they devised contained a number of defects that seriously hinder the transition to sustainable earth society.
The major cybernetic weaknesses in the Philippine and US government systems include: the absence of a permanent and effective mechanism for developing and instituting long-range forecasts and plans; the disproportionate influence in government by special interest groups; inadequate information flow within Congress, and between Congress and the public; the bureaucracy bottleneck; and the failure to ensure the election of sustainable earth leaders.
The grand design of the Constitution is like a finely balanced watch with gear and springs moving and responding at different time lags. For immediate response, there is the executive branch. But to avoid hasty changes and to ensure responsiveness to the diversity of national interests, the Congress was created. It, in turn, contains two cybernetic loops —the House of Representatives, which has faster response time because its members are elected every three years, and the Senate whose members have six-year terms and can take a slightly longer view – that guard against abuse of power by the executive branch.
The counterbalance to the entire system is the Supreme Court, whose members are appointed practically for life.
A major problem in the executive branch and the legislative branch is the undue influence on elections by wealthy and/or special interest groups.
This problem plagues all government and may never be eliminated. But a powerful and active citizens lobby can help to counterbalance disproportionate influence of business, industry, labor and other powerful well-financed interest groups by providing additional checks and balances.
It is suggested that national election campaigns be financed by assessment of all taxpayers, with no contributions allowed and with spending limits rigidly enforced.
Unfortunately, politics is no longer concerned with the distribution of resources in an orderly fashion—who gets what, where, when, how and why. Politicians are more focused on making their own re-election possible.
More and more Filipinos, who are fed up with waiting for government to act, are re-defining politics.
Politics is no longer just a question of what candidate, party or issues you vote for. Today, politics can be as much concerned with how you live your life as with what you think about national security issues or energy policy.
