(First of two Parts)

This week marks the official start of the 2010 election campaign. Every man/woman-on-the-street, however, knows that the “wannabes” at all levels (particularly Presidentiables and Senatoriables) have been vigorously advertising themselves for many months already – unofficially and/or illegally.

More important, this week should be seen as the beginning of sincere personal renewal and sustainable national development for our people’s well-being. Both incumbents and new candidates are exceptionally gifted by the Good Lord with this rare patriotic opportunity to reform for the better.

Being incumbent President and, simultaneously, Congressional “wannabe” in Pampanga, PGMA should be the model of individual renewal and the exemplary leader towards national transformation.

Regrettably, she has not yet done transformational change – if we are to assess her decisions and actions (mostly controversial for the past four years), in terms of confidence-building and teamwork towards people’s welfare and national progress.

Rebuilding our ideals/bonds

In Cebu City, last 21 January 2010, I guested at the combined Roundtable of Local and Foreign Chambers of Commerce/Industry, Employers’ Confederation, and Consular Corps on the tasks of renewal, reform, and change from the vantage point of my 51 years’ experience in public service up to 1998, and international networking at the highest levels during the past decade.

As we see it, our most immediate – and urgent - task is that of rebuilding our public ideals and restoring the bonds of trust between citizens and those who govern (as “servants of the people”) – including managing our democratic institutions.

During these past ten years, Filipinos have seen such strong evidence of corruption in nearly every aspect of our national society that citizens are becoming pessimistic about the future of our nation.

Our country has fallen to the bottom of the World Bank’s list of 10 East Asian States ranked according to perceived corruption. What is worse, many Filipinos seem to believe that corruption takes place with the tolerance – if not collusion – of the highest political authorities.

The 2009 UN Human Development Report shows the Philippines at rank 105 among 185, or a showing of 57 percent (down in the lower half) – a big negative drop since 1997.

Socially, we’re facing nutritional and educational disasters. Six out of 10 Filipino children are malnourished.

And, only 59 percent of all children who enter Grade One ever finish high school.

All these seem the likeliest reasons why opinion surveys consistently grade PGMA with “the lowest approval rating of all Presidents since 1965. ”

Draft agenda for national renewal

There are many things we need to accomplish within so little time. And, we can no longer address basic national problems with a “business-as-usual” approach.

We believe, first of all, that Filipinos must agree on a workable, three-pronged program embodying our collective will:

* Build State capacity;
* Modernize the economy; and,
* Terminate absolute poverty.

Every voter among us should agree to contribute, however humbly, to such a “National Agenda for Renewal and Transformation. ” We can then choose – by virtue of our ballots – our next President on the basis of who can best lead in restoring and reinforcing our national well-being.

We should elect a “transformational” President who will change things and not just “rearrange” them – because the weakness of our political, economic, and social institutions gives the greatest scope for the exercise of Presidential leadership for good or for evil.

Regulatory capture

In 2007, then Economic Planning (NEDA) Secretary Romulo Neri estimated that “regulatory capture” in agencies supervising the aviation, maritime, infrastructure, telecommunications, and energy sectors cost the State between P100 and P200 billion in potential income. Direct corruption (by bribery and patong) and the indirect kind (by political pressure, bodily threats, and policy machinations) reduce annual GDP by between one and two percentage points.

Another State weakness is our tax effort, which is the lowest among comparable East Asian economies. Our meager tax take of only 12.8 percent prevents us from making crucial public investments – in people’s health, education, connective infrastructure, etc. – needed to avert disastrous shortcomings tomorrow.

In the 2005 Comparative Tax Effort of ASEAN Countries, the five-year average percentage ranking was: Brunei (25.1 percent), Vietnam (18.2 percent), Malaysia (17.0 percent), Indonesia (11.8 percent), Thailand (15.3 percent), Singapore (13.7 percent), Philippines (12.8 percent), Lao PDR (9.6 percent), and Cambodia (7.2 percent). There is no available Myanmar data.

More recent findings could place the Philippines even lower – given the massive budgetary deficit experienced in 2009 and also projected for 2010.

Issues of economic management Dr. Cielito Habito – who was Planning Secretary in the Ramos Cabinet – famously describes our economy’s growth over this last decade as “narrow, shallow, and hollow.”

Narrow – More than half of domestic output is generated by Metro Manila, Central Luzon, and Southern Tagalog; Shallow – 70 percent of our exports (electronics and garments) depend heavily on imported raw materials and intermediate inputs. The thin slice of value added (only 17 percent in electronics) is accounted for almost entirely by labor; and, Hollow – In the past decade, our economy’s episodes of growth have been accompanied by increased joblessness, higher poverty incidence, and wider income inequality.

By carrying on capital-intensive import-substitution – while our neighbors switched to labor-intensive exports – we cut-off the beneficial linkages between agriculture and industry; constricted job opportunities; and concentrated development benefits on landowning, industrial, and professional elites.

Therefore, we are among East Asia’s most highly unequal societies. In 2006, the richest 10 percent of Filipinos had roughly 23 times more income than the poorest 10 percent. And, since the global recession is raising poverty levels worldwide, we can expect that our income gap has also deepened. In South Korea, by comparison, the income gap between the highest and the lowest 10 percent is only 8 to 1.

Agriculture and manufacturing

We have been treating agriculture as the “step-child” of development – although in East Asia, agricultural reform became the foundation of industrial development which ultimately resulted in sustained growth.

In regard to manufacturing – on which would-be modernizers placed hopes of higher incomes and jobs – it is in long-term decline. Right now, a big problem is how to employ 2.8 million under-educated young people unable to fill the jobs the modern economy generates.

Ironically, the modernization we strive for has not included “industrializing” our agricultural systems/processes.

Not only must agriculture feed successive Filipino generations. It must also be able to exploit markets in economies opening up through globalization.

Education and “inherited”

poverty As elsewhere, our poorest households are those whose heads have the barest formal education – or none at all. And they pass down their poverty to their children/grandchildren.

The key to breaking out of “inherited poverty” is education. Yet, we have shamefully neglected providing full support for universal basic education and tools for self-help and self-learning.

According to the United Nations, we are one of only three countries worldwide with a 10-year, basic education system. Even Laos and Mongolia have elected the 12-year system for elementary-high school levels.

The renowned educator, Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, calls our inability to provide adequate basic education to the great majority of people “our immense and largely invisible failure.”

Dep-Ed Secretary Jesli Lapus placed school attendance rate for 2007-08 at only 85 percent. This means we won’t be able to meet by 2015 our Millennium Development Goal of 100 percent participation.

Health and nutrition

Right now, too high a proportion of our education budget goes to State colleges and universities; and too much of the health budget goes to tertiary public hospitals. This means the very poor never get to benefit from budgeted social services funded by Government.

Mexico’s Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) program – which pays the poorest families to keep children in school and subject them to regular health examinations – is proving effective in reducing “inherited poverty. ” Already, it has been adopted by 30 poor countries, notably Bangladesh and Indonesia.

We should stop shotgun-type/doleout anti-poverty programs, e.g., wasteful subsidies such as those of the National Food Authority in favor of focused income subsidies such as the CCT program.

We should adopt a “No Child-Out-of-School” policy to achieve basic education’s MDG by 2015, and consider indexing the yearly budget for primary healthcare and education to GDP growth.

Easy promises, daunting challenges

The above-cited framework for a “National Agenda for Renewal and Transformation” we invite “wannabe” leaders to adopt as their own program of governance.

As suggested, incumbent and would-be leaders would do well to internalize then actualize – for the coming elections and the long-term – this “Action Agenda” with three components: improve State capacity; modernize the economy; and eliminate generational poverty.

It is easy to promise, but dauntingly difficult to perform sustainably. Kaya ba natin ito?

Abangan, next Sunday: More on Renewal/Transformation.

Please send any comments to fvr@rpdev.org. Copies of articles are available at www.rpdev.org.