Where the rubber hits the road

The Aquino Administration appears committed to fundamental or must-do initiatives, zero-based budgeting and efficiency in public administration, for example – and wants to eliminate incentives to industries that have not become competitive as well as agencies that are unsustainable?

Are these efforts meant to make the public sector truly effective – and by definition eliminate patronage politics, one of the many faces of corruption? Is the Administration signaling their readiness for . . . where the rubber hits the road – and to confront vested interests head on? What about opening the economy up so that we attract greater foreign direct investments? Indeed we need both: (a) efficiency in public administration and (b) investments if we are to move the country forward and truly address poverty?

Change is never easy – and focusing on a handful of must-dos raises the probability of successfully pursuing change? It is understandable that our instinct of inclusion makes us uncomfortable if initiatives don’t appear to be holistic – i.e., we have yet to internalize Pareto’s principle or the 80-20 rule? And is at the heart of the unease our compassionate heart? For example, doing zero-based budgeting and eliminating unsustainable government agencies would mean unemployment for those affected? Practitioners recognize that the key to successfully pursuing major- or large-scale change is to articulate ‘the end point’ – it facilitates identifying the elements critical to execution, i.e., a plan is only as good as it is executed, and lends itself to continuous improvement. And it also explains why the US has a better record in commercializing ideas than Europe, for example – their R&D mantra is to ‘start with the end in view’. Of course, it demands practice, practice and more practice, as his Eastern European friends are learning firsthand.

Is our compassionate heart behind our inability to create strong economic fundamentals – for example, our failure to focus on something very basic as power makes us uncompetitive in manufacturing and our broader economy weak? And the price is poverty? An economic activity that is unsustainable has to give – and the Greeks learned it the hard way, i.e., their recent financial crisis could be traced to a bloated bureaucracy, among others. A German couple tells the writer and his wife that while the average German is predisposed to assist countries like Greece, they don’t take it lightly that governments could be inefficient.

President Ramos had talked about crab mentality – and there are many facets to it? When we give a wink and a nod to inefficiency in government we are in fact mirroring a crab mentality, i.e., the country suffers like we’ve suffered for decades given lack of such basics as power, water and rice or a world-class airport or harbor or transport system?

Another facet is our bias against foreign investments, i.e., the country has suffered for decades given lack of investments and thus our inability to be competitive? To be competitive demands a strong foundation: (a) basic infrastructure, e.g., power, water and rice and a world-class airport or harbor or transport system; and (b) as importantly, strategic industries that can drive our GDP per person.

Giving a wink and a nod to a few . . . where the rubber hits the road . . . pulls the whole country down – or why we remain economic laggards reduced to talking about our first-world neighbors? That they ought to be our models, but models are inanimate and don’t bring prosperity – change does . . . because it comes from the mind and driven by the heart?