Character of the Speech
P-Noy truly lived up to his character and personality of being scrutinizing on the use of the budget and to his platform on anti-corruption. Most of his speech was spent on the prosecutive capacity of the government to pursue cases against those who mismanaged public funds. He provided a litany of examples to show the extent of how corruption has led to the loss of money that could have been spent on basic social services. There were a lot of guarantees during the speech, trademark to his "walang tong, wang-wang" statement during his inaugural. This time he said wala nang tong pats.
While it may be true, it is only a reiteration of what has been echoed in previous SONA's, or even in investigative shows, perhaps the latter being more detailed when it comes to scrutiny and going through the detail.
Mismatch in Problem-Solution Approach
However, there was apparently a disproportion in the way he overwhelmingly expounded on the problems compared to thoroughly enumerating various means he intends to solve them. That mismatch could lead to a shortfall in terms of effort and result from the government's perspective. It is not enough to say "I will instruct, I will lead, I am saying now", because some of the ills are not borne out of one's moral capacity to live a corrupt-free life alone, but are embedded and deeply rooted in our institutional frailities to encourage honesty and discourage corruption in government. A hungry person will most likely not steal if he has an honest means to eat. A working person will most likely not cut corners if his salary is enough to more than cover his personal expenses. There is always an ulterior motive more than the act itself, and the President, known to be a morally upright one, failed to analyze that it is not only his behavior which is important, but the way that behavior is managed under a system. You can expect people to admire, but you must not expect them to follow if you have a system that is all stick or a system that is all carrot. There should be certainty of punishment, and at the same time, an incentive scheme to facilitate an environment of balance.
I would have personally loved to hear a reiteration of the need for congress to approve the FOI Bill, where we are guaranteeing the citizen access to official records and documents and papers pertaining to official acts, transaction and decision of the government which capacitates the people to be fully enlisted in the decision-making and legitimizing process.
It would have been better as well if we also took into consideration the report of the United Nations Against Corruption in its entirety, not just focusing on the enactment of a Whistleblower's Act, but also to work some sort of amendment to the Bank Secrecy Law.
The backlog of Public-Private Partnerships when government shows an overly excited atttitude towards the proposition
Public Private Partnerships I believe, is good, but must also be met with a lot of skepticism. Why? Because these investments are ultimately embedded with personal/business interests. A person would not just go to government and say, I want to build an expressway, without a sufficient understanding of the gains he intends to have on this. This, in fact, can be very dangerous if we are to show our overly excited attitude towards this prospect. It would have been nice if PNoy stressed that while we are hard pressed for finances, we will continue to uphold the dignity of this government by ensuring that we will carefully look into these proposals, perform a cost benefit analysis to all stakeholders and decide if it is good for the general welfare of the people, even as we venture into partnerships with the private sector.
Government's Financial Constraints
In terms of the budget, we must also try to find new ways of expanding the pie of revenues used to cover public expenditure. The solution must not only be prosecutive, but also preventive in nature. There is a great need to cut down the costs of government, and if that is through the merger of several replicating agencies, that should facilitate it well, along with ensuring efficiency in terms of operations and strategies. We must also try to review and reform GOCCs. Some GOCCs have constituted a heavy drain on the government’s finances, through subsidies and other budgetary allocations while others sustained heavy foreign exchange losses. Given these observations, a review of the GOCCs’ mandate, functions, and financial and operational viability is warranted and should be undertaken to address chronic problems encountered by GOCCs. We must also rework and re-rationalize our fiscal incentives in maintaining fiscal sustainability in the country. The challenge for policymakers is to design a fiscal incentive system that is competitive with the country’s ASEAN neighbors and one that is supportive of fiscal reforms. Identifying redundant investments – those that would have been made even without incentives in place – is an important step in designing the system. In addition, there is a need to re-examine the tax privileges of economic zones/freeports to avoid instances of leakage and abuses. These are reform points I expected to PNoy to deliver, but did not.
Generally, the speech was not all that bad, but it warrants more dynamic and specific solutions to the growing number of problems our country has. He made a good remark on people participating in the solutions (nakikibahagi), instead of just purely complaining (nakikialam). Hopefully, the next SONA will bare the blueprint of his term as President.
P-Noy truly lived up to his character and personality of being scrutinizing on the use of the budget and to his platform on anti-corruption. Most of his speech was spent on the prosecutive capacity of the government to pursue cases against those who mismanaged public funds. He provided a litany of examples to show the extent of how corruption has led to the loss of money that could have been spent on basic social services. There were a lot of guarantees during the speech, trademark to his "walang tong, wang-wang" statement during his inaugural. This time he said wala nang tong pats.
While it may be true, it is only a reiteration of what has been echoed in previous SONA's, or even in investigative shows, perhaps the latter being more detailed when it comes to scrutiny and going through the detail.
Mismatch in Problem-Solution Approach
However, there was apparently a disproportion in the way he overwhelmingly expounded on the problems compared to thoroughly enumerating various means he intends to solve them. That mismatch could lead to a shortfall in terms of effort and result from the government's perspective. It is not enough to say "I will instruct, I will lead, I am saying now", because some of the ills are not borne out of one's moral capacity to live a corrupt-free life alone, but are embedded and deeply rooted in our institutional frailities to encourage honesty and discourage corruption in government. A hungry person will most likely not steal if he has an honest means to eat. A working person will most likely not cut corners if his salary is enough to more than cover his personal expenses. There is always an ulterior motive more than the act itself, and the President, known to be a morally upright one, failed to analyze that it is not only his behavior which is important, but the way that behavior is managed under a system. You can expect people to admire, but you must not expect them to follow if you have a system that is all stick or a system that is all carrot. There should be certainty of punishment, and at the same time, an incentive scheme to facilitate an environment of balance.
I would have personally loved to hear a reiteration of the need for congress to approve the FOI Bill, where we are guaranteeing the citizen access to official records and documents and papers pertaining to official acts, transaction and decision of the government which capacitates the people to be fully enlisted in the decision-making and legitimizing process.
It would have been better as well if we also took into consideration the report of the United Nations Against Corruption in its entirety, not just focusing on the enactment of a Whistleblower's Act, but also to work some sort of amendment to the Bank Secrecy Law.
The backlog of Public-Private Partnerships when government shows an overly excited atttitude towards the proposition
Public Private Partnerships I believe, is good, but must also be met with a lot of skepticism. Why? Because these investments are ultimately embedded with personal/business interests. A person would not just go to government and say, I want to build an expressway, without a sufficient understanding of the gains he intends to have on this. This, in fact, can be very dangerous if we are to show our overly excited attitude towards this prospect. It would have been nice if PNoy stressed that while we are hard pressed for finances, we will continue to uphold the dignity of this government by ensuring that we will carefully look into these proposals, perform a cost benefit analysis to all stakeholders and decide if it is good for the general welfare of the people, even as we venture into partnerships with the private sector.
Government's Financial Constraints
In terms of the budget, we must also try to find new ways of expanding the pie of revenues used to cover public expenditure. The solution must not only be prosecutive, but also preventive in nature. There is a great need to cut down the costs of government, and if that is through the merger of several replicating agencies, that should facilitate it well, along with ensuring efficiency in terms of operations and strategies. We must also try to review and reform GOCCs. Some GOCCs have constituted a heavy drain on the government’s finances, through subsidies and other budgetary allocations while others sustained heavy foreign exchange losses. Given these observations, a review of the GOCCs’ mandate, functions, and financial and operational viability is warranted and should be undertaken to address chronic problems encountered by GOCCs. We must also rework and re-rationalize our fiscal incentives in maintaining fiscal sustainability in the country. The challenge for policymakers is to design a fiscal incentive system that is competitive with the country’s ASEAN neighbors and one that is supportive of fiscal reforms. Identifying redundant investments – those that would have been made even without incentives in place – is an important step in designing the system. In addition, there is a need to re-examine the tax privileges of economic zones/freeports to avoid instances of leakage and abuses. These are reform points I expected to PNoy to deliver, but did not.
Generally, the speech was not all that bad, but it warrants more dynamic and specific solutions to the growing number of problems our country has. He made a good remark on people participating in the solutions (nakikibahagi), instead of just purely complaining (nakikialam). Hopefully, the next SONA will bare the blueprint of his term as President.
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