AN UNSOLICITED LIST FOR NOYNOY
The Philippine Star
06/11/10

A month after elections and two weeks before he takes his oath, Benigno Aquino III is finally proclaimed the 15th president of a nation that has perfected the art of pulling itself down at every chance it gets and blowing opportunities to progress.

Our bipolar nature hopes that Noynoy, who won by a landslide, is going to be the answer to all our problems. And yet at the same time, we can't help but think that he might buckle under the pressure and be overwhelmed by the challenges that will confront him.

There are just too many things to fix in this country that each and every letter of the alphabet will probably be well represented in the to-do list.

To prove a point, I did a mental exercise to see whether I can do an A to Z listing of the issues that Noynoy will have to face once he starts his six-year term on July 1. In two minutes, I had at least one item each for the first 13 letters of the alphabet. I figured I would spend a few minutes trying to flesh them out to see whether they would actually pass the litmus test of critical thinking.

I invite the readers to be the judge and to conduct a similar exercise if they please.

Airports

Any foreigner who's traveled far and wide would say that our airports suck, and I'm pretty sure all the three million tourists who flew in last year would agree. Our full-service airports are physically in bad shape, cramped and worn-out as they are. The relatively new one that could have given us some semblance of pride is mired in a legal battle that's preventing it from being fully utilized.

Aviation safety also remains an outstanding issue after the US Federal Aviation Administration downgraded the country's safety rating to Category 2 in 2008. Just in April, the European Commission banned Philippine carriers from flying into the European airspace. While EU's decision doesn't mean anything because no local airline currently flies there, the negative signal it sends out have serious reputational and long-standing repercussions to our carriers.

BIR, Budget

The Bureaus of Internal Revenue and Customs make up almost 90 percent of the government's annual revenue. Unfortunately, these two agencies are just collecting half to two-thirds of their potential, handicapping the government's capacity to provide even the most basic service such as paving roads and building classrooms.

Government budget is set at a record almost every year to help boost economic growth and spur productivity. That's all fine and dandy, except that often, the budget is misused and misappropriated, leading to a widening gap between revenue and expenditures.

Corruption, Crime

The Philippines' fight with the Big C seems to be a never-ending battle. We are on top (or at least always near the top) of the charts when it comes to corruption. In the BIR and Customs, experts estimate that close to half of the revenue potential is lost to unscrupulous practices.

Crime in the country is probably as endemic as corruption. The only time the crime rate goes down is when Manny Pacquiao takes the ring and that happens only once or twice a year and only for a few hours.

Deficit, Debt

The deficit widened to a record P298.5 billion last year and is projected to stay near that level until next year. The original plan of balancing the budget in 2010 (earlier accelerated to 2008) was postponed to 2013 and probably as late as 2016 or until Noynoy’s term ends.

As the deficit expanded, the government's initial efforts to reduce the percentage of debt to gross domestic product or GDP closer to the 30 percent were stalled. Without the overseas remittances flooding the system and boosting the economy, the size of the GDP wouldn't have expanded and that would have swelled the debt ratios once again.

Employment

Lack of employment opportunities have forced hundreds of thousands of our local human resources to put themselves for use by other countries. They do whatever jobs are offered them, some way below what they studied and trained for. They are contributing significantly to our economy but at great social cost to their personal lives and to our society. Some may really want to work abroad, but it should be a choice on their part rather than a last resort.

Farm

The country's farm sector just accounts for about 20 percent of GDP. As if inefficient government systems aren't enough to cramp the agriculture sector, weather phenomena have been adding to the challenge. First was the El Nino that not only baked the soil and curbed rice and corn output but also reduced water levels at dams and jacked up the costs of electricity in the past few months. Now, we are under threat by the exact opposite, which is La Nina, or the extremely wet weather that could lead to floods similar to Ondoy and Pepeng.

Governance

The entire government is ailing. Low-paid public servants are uninspired, making them extremely vulnerable to bribes. There are just too many bureaucrats duplicating work such that in the airport for instance, there are one or two people checking whether you've paid the terminal fee, just right beside the collecting counter.

Hunger, Housing

In a January survey by the Social Weather Stations, households who had nothing to eat at least one day in every quarter climbed to a record 24 percent. The stark reality clashes with the 7.3 percent gross domestic product, fastest growth in three years, reported by the government for the first quarter.

Hand-in-hand with lack of food would be a shortage in shelter. Millions of Filipinos reside in unoccupied land, opting to squat in Manila and its fringes in search of jobs than to work as farmers and fishermen in their home provinces.

Infrastructure, Insurgency

The government spends way less than 5 percent of the GDP on public works, one of the lowest ratios of infrastructure spending in the region. More money has to go to build roads, ports and bridges so they can generate jobs, stoke demand for cement and construction materials, and boost the tourism sector.

Clashes between troops and militants and rebel groups have been going on for ages. The only time genuine peace can be achieved is when people's bellies are full and they have a solid roof over their heads.

Justice

Tons of legal cases are gathering dusts in every court in the country, adding blows to the justice system that's perceived as being extremely corrupt. It is also in the courts that tax evaders and smugglers managed to escape the claws of previous administrations. Reforms would take more than naming a credible justice secretary and ombudsman. But at least that would be a start.

Killings

The outgoing administration is under fire from Human Rights Watch and other organizations for the biggest number of deaths among journalists. It's also perceived not to have done much, or anything, in solving the murders carried out by vigilantes.

The massacre in Maguindanao in November simply cemented this patchy (anti) human rights record of a government that Aquino will inherit.

Local governments

Decentralization has long been a lip service in government. The truth is, resources have always stayed in the hands of the national government. While that is true, a lot of local governments have major corruption issues that have managed to stay below the radar.

Ghost employees, those men and women who get paid without having to show up in the mayor's office or maybe even without having existed at all, have bloated the overhead costs along with commissions in road and school projects at the barangay, municipality, city and provincial levels.

Midnight Appointments

According to ABS-CBN/Newsbreak, from March 1 to March 9 alone, soon-to-be-ex-President Gloria Arroyo managed to appoit 169 people in state agencies, beating the 60-day ban on appointments that started March 10. We've heard, for instance, of Arroyo appointing her manicurista and gardener in some choice government posts.

Unraveling these midnight appointments could lead to legal tussles requiring time, effort and resources that would be better directed to solving other pressing problems.

The enormity of it all

The above is a partial list, and some of the items may not even be included in the “list of problems” that Noynoy is working on. Such is the enormity of the challenges he is facing starting July 1, 2010.

Should you wish to share any insights, write me at Link Edge, 25th Floor, 139 Corporate Center, Valero Street, SalcedoVillage, 1227 MakatiCity. Or e-mail me at reydgamboa@yahoo.com. For a compilation of previous articles, visit www.BizlinksPhilippines.net