Horribly Performing Government Agencies
The Philippine Star - Boo Chanco
August 21, 2015
© Provided by The Philippine Star
We have heard of the top
performing agencies like the Bangko Sentral, PEZA, Tourism, Foreign
Affairs and PAGASA. We have also heard that the Office of the Vice
President is the least performing. All these are according to the big
bosses of Philippine business responding to a survey of the Makati
Business Club.
BSP and PEZA are really hands down winners. Both agencies under the leadership of Gov. Say Tetangco and Lilia de Lima, have been tirelessly working through the years to promote our country’s economic growth even under most trying times. No matter how corrupt or incompetent the leader in Malacanang may have been, both agencies simply delivered.
PAGASA is the most inspiring of the top five. The weather scientists working under conditions that are less than ideal have shown what sheer dedication can do. They have also proven that given a little more budgetary support to get proper equipment, they are able to provide the life saving forecasting service to our people.
Now, let us go to the last ten in MBC’s sample of 64 government agencies. These are: the Court of Appeals, Agrarian Reform, Lower Courts, MWSS, PNP, Energy Regulatory Board, Agriculture, Customs, DOTC, OVP. They did not rate NTC but it will likely end up with this bunch because people are angry about slow broadband speeds at the highest rates.
I can understand why the Court of Appeals is in this bottom list. Its reputation had been seriously tarnished even before a senator made some accusations about its handling of the Binay case.
The Agrarian Reform bureaucracy is noted for lack of performance and corruption through the years. This is probably why the program is a failure. The bureaucracy and the program should be consigned to the garbage heap.
Lower courts? Slow and disruptive. TROs for sale...
MWSS could have done more but it is not because it didn’t try hard enough. I think it caught the ire of the Makati taipans because the regulatory office of MWSS took a hard position on behalf of consumers on rate adjustments. Indeed, I think the current crop of MWSS officials should be commended for doing what they could to clean up operations.
Where MWSS could have done a whole lot more is in the development of alternative water sources to reduce dependence on Angat Dam. I am also aware of how the current MWSS Administrator tried to get the retrofitting work for Angat done early in his watch but was stymied by government procedures and contrary plans such as DOF’s protracted privatization negotiation.
It is not unexpected to see the PNP near the bottom part of the dishonor roll. It was led by a P-Noy kabarkada who was ousted by the Ombudsman. The reputation of the leader reflected on the public perception of the organization. Besides, we don’t feel secure and until we all do, we will continue to think of the national police as a failure.
The public trust level of our police is dangerously low. The PNP’s biggest challenge is winning our trust. When that happens, we can start to believe their crime statistics which they claim show an improvement.
The ERC is another agency with a credibility problem. It might help that it has a new chairman, a young technocrat who seems to understand his job. The presence of a nominee of a power company among its commissioners makes it difficult to shake off the impression of regulatory capture.
ERC’s big test will be its decision on that controversial increase in power rate December 2013. Preliminary findings seem to show evidence of price manipulation by some of the largest power conglomerates. Consumers will be closely watching what ERC’s final verdict will be.
The Agriculture department has been a colossal failure under P-Noy. Its head should have resigned when P-Noy, having noticed the problem, assigned Kiko Pangilinan to take over the department’s most important agencies. I am not surprised it is in the kulelat list.
Customs is one of the least respected agencies of government. Our Daang Matuwid President fired a reform minded head and replaced him with someone who has a very clear conflict of interest. I don’t think, based on what I hear from businessmen dealing with the bureau, that this conflict has been resolved.
I heard that most of its credibility problems can be traced to the Office of the President. I understand one of the deputy commissioners has written a report on that Daang Baluktot to P-Noy.
But I don’t think the Customs people mind being in this dishonor roll of corrupt and poorly functioning government agencies as long as the kalakaran is alive and well. As P-Noy himself puts it in one of his SONAs, they are shameless... He asked: Saan kayo kumukuha ng kapal ng mukha?
The second most despised agency, according to the Makati businessmen, is DOTC. Why am I not surprised? There is nothing more I can write here I have not written before. It is a horrible non performing agency that will haunt Mar Roxas in next year’s election.
The kulelat is the OVP. Why was it even rated? There is nothing clear about the OVP’s function. I suspect the Makati Business Club rating merely reflected the corruption image of VP Jojo Binay.
So there… both ends of the spectrum… the good and the bad. Hopefully, we get inspiring performance from some of the kulelat agencies next time.
Here is a foreigner’s view of our tourism efforts.
Hi. First, I must say I enjoy, whether I agree or not with your points of view, reading your columns in the business section of The Philippine Star.
As a foreigner who has lived in the Philippines on and off for 30 of the last 45 years, I feel compelled to comment on today’s column.
The main problem with attracting more tourists to the Philippines is that the environment is, well, filthy in most places. I always laugh when I read that the Philippines has some of the finest beaches in the world. Could be true, if one could get past the polluted beaches and water.
How bad is it? We once had a cottage next to the ocean in La Union. I would go out every day to clean up the trash on the beach. While the local folks loved to watch me clean, I never actually saw anyone else clean the beach. Almost to a person, the onlookers were fishermen who depended upon the sea for their livelihood. Still they never got the connection between a clean ocean and a good catch.
Even here in Baguio, unless you confine yourself to the Country Club or John Hay, you will never smell the flowers or pine trees which once made Baguio famous. The common smells are urine, trash thrown everywhere, and dog feces from uncontrolled animals. Good thing man can’t totally screw up the cool climate, or that’d be gone too.
Foreigners don’t mind poor, they don’t mind traditional, they don’t mind rustic, but they hate filth. Till the culture gets a handle on correcting that, there’s not much else that can be done to increase tourism in the Philippines significantly.
Sorry for being so honest.
And now a view from a Pinoy.
Hello Mr. Chanco,
Good article again today, thank you.
Aside from infrastructure, accommodations, costs... I’d like to add another reason why we can’t match the numbers of our neighbors: CRIME.
I travel very often around the Asean region for business. I also make it a point to check out the local papers’ front and Metro pages. No country comes close to ours in terms of robberies, kidnappings, swindling and most notably – gun-related violence.
Victims here get shot and killed over a minor traffic incident, an argument over a small debt, a cellphone, singing My Way at the karaoke bar, and last but not the least, elections.
The very people I do business with say they are afraid to visit Manila – while they proudly claim they have visited most of the Asean countries and enjoyed it.
Perhaps the locals there are smart enough not to victimize the tourists because they know this is the goose that lays the green dollars. And when there is an exception, the local media does not sensationalize it (“Ativan gang victimizes European”).
Crime is so lucrative here that even the criminals in those countries fly over here to victimize their fellow nationals (we’ve read about those Korean and Chinese gangs exclusively targeting their own).
So aside from the DOTC and the DOT, we have to add to the honor roll the DILG and PNP.
Thank you again for your enlightened columns. I look forward to reading your section MWF, even when I’m on the road (where Philstar.com downloads much faster).
Source: http://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/opinion/horribly-performing-gov%E2%80%99t-agencies/ar-BBlWkoY
BSP and PEZA are really hands down winners. Both agencies under the leadership of Gov. Say Tetangco and Lilia de Lima, have been tirelessly working through the years to promote our country’s economic growth even under most trying times. No matter how corrupt or incompetent the leader in Malacanang may have been, both agencies simply delivered.
PAGASA is the most inspiring of the top five. The weather scientists working under conditions that are less than ideal have shown what sheer dedication can do. They have also proven that given a little more budgetary support to get proper equipment, they are able to provide the life saving forecasting service to our people.
Now, let us go to the last ten in MBC’s sample of 64 government agencies. These are: the Court of Appeals, Agrarian Reform, Lower Courts, MWSS, PNP, Energy Regulatory Board, Agriculture, Customs, DOTC, OVP. They did not rate NTC but it will likely end up with this bunch because people are angry about slow broadband speeds at the highest rates.
I can understand why the Court of Appeals is in this bottom list. Its reputation had been seriously tarnished even before a senator made some accusations about its handling of the Binay case.
The Agrarian Reform bureaucracy is noted for lack of performance and corruption through the years. This is probably why the program is a failure. The bureaucracy and the program should be consigned to the garbage heap.
Lower courts? Slow and disruptive. TROs for sale...
MWSS could have done more but it is not because it didn’t try hard enough. I think it caught the ire of the Makati taipans because the regulatory office of MWSS took a hard position on behalf of consumers on rate adjustments. Indeed, I think the current crop of MWSS officials should be commended for doing what they could to clean up operations.
Where MWSS could have done a whole lot more is in the development of alternative water sources to reduce dependence on Angat Dam. I am also aware of how the current MWSS Administrator tried to get the retrofitting work for Angat done early in his watch but was stymied by government procedures and contrary plans such as DOF’s protracted privatization negotiation.
It is not unexpected to see the PNP near the bottom part of the dishonor roll. It was led by a P-Noy kabarkada who was ousted by the Ombudsman. The reputation of the leader reflected on the public perception of the organization. Besides, we don’t feel secure and until we all do, we will continue to think of the national police as a failure.
The public trust level of our police is dangerously low. The PNP’s biggest challenge is winning our trust. When that happens, we can start to believe their crime statistics which they claim show an improvement.
The ERC is another agency with a credibility problem. It might help that it has a new chairman, a young technocrat who seems to understand his job. The presence of a nominee of a power company among its commissioners makes it difficult to shake off the impression of regulatory capture.
ERC’s big test will be its decision on that controversial increase in power rate December 2013. Preliminary findings seem to show evidence of price manipulation by some of the largest power conglomerates. Consumers will be closely watching what ERC’s final verdict will be.
The Agriculture department has been a colossal failure under P-Noy. Its head should have resigned when P-Noy, having noticed the problem, assigned Kiko Pangilinan to take over the department’s most important agencies. I am not surprised it is in the kulelat list.
Customs is one of the least respected agencies of government. Our Daang Matuwid President fired a reform minded head and replaced him with someone who has a very clear conflict of interest. I don’t think, based on what I hear from businessmen dealing with the bureau, that this conflict has been resolved.
I heard that most of its credibility problems can be traced to the Office of the President. I understand one of the deputy commissioners has written a report on that Daang Baluktot to P-Noy.
But I don’t think the Customs people mind being in this dishonor roll of corrupt and poorly functioning government agencies as long as the kalakaran is alive and well. As P-Noy himself puts it in one of his SONAs, they are shameless... He asked: Saan kayo kumukuha ng kapal ng mukha?
The second most despised agency, according to the Makati businessmen, is DOTC. Why am I not surprised? There is nothing more I can write here I have not written before. It is a horrible non performing agency that will haunt Mar Roxas in next year’s election.
The kulelat is the OVP. Why was it even rated? There is nothing clear about the OVP’s function. I suspect the Makati Business Club rating merely reflected the corruption image of VP Jojo Binay.
So there… both ends of the spectrum… the good and the bad. Hopefully, we get inspiring performance from some of the kulelat agencies next time.
Tourism
Hi. First, I must say I enjoy, whether I agree or not with your points of view, reading your columns in the business section of The Philippine Star.
As a foreigner who has lived in the Philippines on and off for 30 of the last 45 years, I feel compelled to comment on today’s column.
The main problem with attracting more tourists to the Philippines is that the environment is, well, filthy in most places. I always laugh when I read that the Philippines has some of the finest beaches in the world. Could be true, if one could get past the polluted beaches and water.
How bad is it? We once had a cottage next to the ocean in La Union. I would go out every day to clean up the trash on the beach. While the local folks loved to watch me clean, I never actually saw anyone else clean the beach. Almost to a person, the onlookers were fishermen who depended upon the sea for their livelihood. Still they never got the connection between a clean ocean and a good catch.
Even here in Baguio, unless you confine yourself to the Country Club or John Hay, you will never smell the flowers or pine trees which once made Baguio famous. The common smells are urine, trash thrown everywhere, and dog feces from uncontrolled animals. Good thing man can’t totally screw up the cool climate, or that’d be gone too.
Foreigners don’t mind poor, they don’t mind traditional, they don’t mind rustic, but they hate filth. Till the culture gets a handle on correcting that, there’s not much else that can be done to increase tourism in the Philippines significantly.
Sorry for being so honest.
And now a view from a Pinoy.
Hello Mr. Chanco,
Good article again today, thank you.
Aside from infrastructure, accommodations, costs... I’d like to add another reason why we can’t match the numbers of our neighbors: CRIME.
I travel very often around the Asean region for business. I also make it a point to check out the local papers’ front and Metro pages. No country comes close to ours in terms of robberies, kidnappings, swindling and most notably – gun-related violence.
Victims here get shot and killed over a minor traffic incident, an argument over a small debt, a cellphone, singing My Way at the karaoke bar, and last but not the least, elections.
The very people I do business with say they are afraid to visit Manila – while they proudly claim they have visited most of the Asean countries and enjoyed it.
Perhaps the locals there are smart enough not to victimize the tourists because they know this is the goose that lays the green dollars. And when there is an exception, the local media does not sensationalize it (“Ativan gang victimizes European”).
Crime is so lucrative here that even the criminals in those countries fly over here to victimize their fellow nationals (we’ve read about those Korean and Chinese gangs exclusively targeting their own).
So aside from the DOTC and the DOT, we have to add to the honor roll the DILG and PNP.
Thank you again for your enlightened columns. I look forward to reading your section MWF, even when I’m on the road (where Philstar.com downloads much faster).
Source: http://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/opinion/horribly-performing-gov%E2%80%99t-agencies/ar-BBlWkoY
2 comments:
The Philippines is a country where the Filipinos have the mentality that they don't care. They're content living like animals and behaving like animals. They don't want to do anything to improve and/or change their lives or country.
So I ask you, if they are unwilling to put the effort forth to help themselves, then why should we care to help them?
These comments were sent to us today but asked to remain anonymous. We will honor their requests and post their comments as a anonymous contributor.
"They lie, they cheat, live in landfills, drive bad,have the worst food, eat birds alive, are racist, obsesed with whitening cremes, ship themselves overseas to become maids and never go back , they have contributed NOTHING to society and yet still in the end they claim to be the perfect race. I don't know how anyone can stand being around them. We hate them over here in Europe. My American friends tell me they're seeing more and more Pinays. They hate the pinays too.
Pinoy pride lol what's their to be proud about?"
"Why is it my relatives in the philippines seem content to sit on their asses all day and ask for handouts and free money instead of working and earning their own way? Is this something inherent in all filipino people? Why are all our relatives so lazy and have no ambition or motivation to help themselves?
Poverty is no excuse for having a poor work ethic. Get a job you slobs.
THey are also liars. THey lie about everything and think it's ok."
Post a Comment