SOUNDING BOARD is an outlet for opinions on good and crazy things going on at home (wherever I may be). All are welcome. You are not expected to bring anything except your common sense & sense of humor.
'If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.'
-Robert X. Cringely (from geek wisdom)
SOUNDING BOARD
Friday, February 21, 2003
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Warding off stupidity
SOUNDING BOARD seems to be quite inactive for sometime. I didn't have much time to post for the past few weeks. Well let me see if I have a good alibi for that... let me mention two.
One, this country's penchant for coming up with policy interventions (bills, executive issuances, etc.) for almost any problem in the country seem to have been keeping me busy. Sure, there may be some areas in need of legislation. But when one looks at some proposed legislation and finds out that this and that congressman and senator are proposing for the establishment (read: proliferation) of centers for youth, women, children, and almost every population group in the country during this time when the national budget isn't even enough for basic services, then policy evaluation becomes an exercise of diplomacy. Policy evaluation reports become a way of stating what should already be obvious to our elected representatives: Mr. Congressman/Madam Senator/Ms. Representative from the 3rd District of wherever, your proposal to create a center for youth, women, whoever in every city and municipality in the country may be your best effort to rid the country of poverty but it is with deep regret that we are not inclined to endorse your bill. First, there are existing centers which may be tapped in the same area (which your staff should have bothered to check first instead of wasting our time telling you this). Second, the poor people in your area prefers to have decent work (borrowing from ILO) and food on the table. I doubt if they can eat the centers you are proposing. Third, if you haven't notice yet (because you seem to have lots of budget at your disposal), the national government is cash-strapped right now and could not afford to build a center in every municipality and city in the country. Fourth, we are flooded with a lot of these unfunded mandates which seek to do this and that, build this and that, without any regard as to whether or not the government has money to fund such mandated activities. The last thing we need right now is another proposal to build centers. (Of course, I consider it an art to convey these messages to the "chosen few" in a diplomatic manner. How I wish, someday, I can convey the unsanitized version.)
Two, when policy proposals are not in the form of proposed centers all over the country, the proposed legislations come in the form of budget quotas. Here, these chosen few will propose that this much percent of the total budget of national government agencies should be allocated to gender-related activities, or youth, or whatever you can think of. And to show further ignorance (read: disrespect) on local government fiscal autonomy, the proposed policy would even venture to include local government units and government corporations. One has to remind our representatives in congress and senate constantly that this is not how to do it. We do not set aside budgets first then determine where to spend them. This is putting the cart several kilometers before the horse. If these activities are really necessary, such will be implemented and correspondingly budgeted even without your budget quota. And when one asks the proponents what is the rationale behind the quota, (e.g., 5% or 1% of the budget) and no intelligent answer is given, one begins to wonder whether they know what they got themselves into in the first place. And when one former senator candidly says "we got lucky because when we were discussing this, the other senators seem to be sleeping", one doubts whether we really get the senators we really deserve.
The irritating part is when it gets to be your job to prepare the implementing guidelines for such ridiculous policies. It can only work 2 ways. One, damage control. Since it is difficult to undo someone's stupidity stamped into law, one has to craft guidelines to make it appear that we are doing something to implement the law so that when these chosen few calls the mandated agencies to a congressional or senate hearing, the more intelligent ones can say we have done this and we have done that. But in reality, they will be doing that anyway even without the subject policy. Two, it could be what I call "riding the waves of stupidity". One can surrender to the utter lack of intelligence in the existing laws and do what it says. Then we get a bloated bureaucracy with public servants doing compliance reports 90 percent of their time and doing real public service 10 percent of their time. One way or the other, it feels like shit.
These are some things which I have been getting myself busy lately. Such a waste of time, and of taxpayers' money.
posted by Allan at 6:29 PM (GMT+8)
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