Another professor dissects our institutions

Last year it was Prof Michael Johnston from Colgate University in New York, now it is Prof Hutchcroft’s turn, from the Australian National University. Both talk to our weak institutions owing to patronage politics, among others? And as a prominent business leader shares with the writer, ‘our way of life puts the personal above most things that principle suffers’? It’s the accepted norm and we simply pay the price? It’s the 21^st century and the Philippines still can’t meet international airport standards, a microcosm of our larger economic problems? And there’s a long list of fiascos to explain our failings in major development efforts to the detriment of Juan de la Cruz while undermining our credibility in the global community – and thus the least preferred by investors?

Prof Paul Hutchcroft (speaking at the recent Bacolod City conference of the Philippine Political Science Association) lifts from Samuel Huntington’s 1968 work to define effective institutions as being “characterized by capacity, coherence, autonomy, and adaptability”. [Inquirer.net, May 5^th] Put another way, we don’t have the capacity to build institutions because we lack coherence – and it sets in motion a host of other elements that could go wrong? And they could range from setting a vision and translating it into concrete goals and on to our execution efforts?

Enter the politicians (in fairness, many are dedicated): In a sea of confusion and incoherence, the natural outcome and common denominator is patronage? In short, it is through patronage that a semblance of coherence is established. Enter the oligarchs: First their core business then anything and everything where they could put their finger on – and in a country starved of most elements of development that could mean from power to water to roads to rails to telecommunications, etc. Yet the lack of coherence persists?

For example, we still don’t have a reliable power supply; Juan de la Cruz is yet to be guaranteed clean, safe, drinking water; there is still very little to show in our rail system; and, of course, telecommunications make the few players go to the mat – and fight it out for control if not monopoly? Where is the coherence in industrial efforts or the platform for development? And in our system of patronage whoever feels left out would have one goal and one goal alone, revenge, pull the country down? Who cares if the country’s basic infrastructure system is paralyzed and backward?

And we continue to cheer the successes of individuals and groups – who are in fact the insiders or, as one columnist would label it, The Boys Club? In fairness many of them are legitimate. Where the failed system thrives is in our support of an inward-looking economy, under the guise of patriotism – yet we’ve messed up our natural resources that we have less than 20% of our forests left? [Where is the authenticity, as one priest would ask?] We’ve shut foreign investments and technology out that the Asian tigers embraced? The outcome: we’re the losers, plain and simple? And now we’re struggling to adapt to the conditions we’ve brought upon ourselves – underinvestment, backward technology, innovation laggards, uncompetitive products and a very limited market?

We can’t find coherence because we have not developed the sense of community? And it brings to mind the work of Bernard Lonergan, SJ; and The Lonergan Institute – so far in a dozen locations around the world including Manila. “Through education and research the institute is using Lonergan’s understanding of human consciousness, of human development, and of human community; and implementing Lonergan’s thought and concern for the ‘human good’. Lonergan has a unique paradigm of interdisciplinary collaboration among economists, ethicists and theologians.”

Our bishops are challenging the clergy and the laity to effect societal change – and lift the sectors that have been marginalized by the narrowness of our economy. And one initiative they could support is ‘Arangkada Philippines 2010’ – “[It] contains measures on how to realize the projected $75-billion foreign direct investments and 10 million jobs in the next 10 years from seven priority industries”. It is the only platform to date that would give us a chance to feed a flock of 100 million – while the debate on the RH Bill would in fact add to our incoherence? How do the private and the public sectors embrace the imperative of community? How could the Bishops support the enterprise – of the thought and concern for the human good?