"There is, and there long has been, no need for a full-Cabinet membership."
"There is, and there long has been, no need for a full-Cabinet membership."
There appears to be dissatisfaction in some quarters about the effectiveness and performance of this country’s national socio-economic planning agency, NEDA (National Economic and Development Authority). One of those quarters is the Senate, where a senator appears poised to file a bill substantially altering the socio-economic policymaking structure of this country.
Whatever dissatisfaction there is with NEDA almost certainly stems from the impression of the largeness of NEDA’s governing body—the indecisiveness seemingly flowing from such largeness. In the wake of the structural change, in the early 70s, from the Commonwealth-era NEC (National Economic Council) to NEDA, the President of the Philippines became Chairman of now-Cabinet-level agency and all the Cabinet secretaries became members of the NEDA Board. Whereas the Council of the NEC was made up of only the heads of the socio-economic Cabinet departments, the entire Cabinet composes the NEDA Board.
Many independent-minded observers had doubts about the rationale offered for making the President in effect the nation’s chief socio-economic policymaker and for making the Cabinet the NEDA Board. Like the skeptics, I could not understand why the heads of departments that were not closely concerned with socio-economic policy issues—such as DND (Department of National Defense) and DOJ (Department of Justice)—had to be members of the NEDA Board. Important and urgent issues relating to the nation’s defense or health or justice system are taken up and resolved in ordinary Cabinet meetings, so it cannot be said that such issues are deprived of the benefit of Cabinet discussion. My fellow skeptics and I could not grasp why the heads of departments of DND and DOJ have to sit in on discussions regarding taxes, fiscal incentives, infrastructure problems and government borrowing.
In contrast, the NEC, which was created in the era of President Manuel Quezon, was headed by a chairman and the members of the NEC Council, on which the private sector was evenly represented, were heads of economic-frontline Cabinet members, such as the Secretary of Finance and the Secretary of Agriculture. Of course, the NEC Council chairman, who approximated the chairman of the US’s Council of Economic Advisers, reported directly to the President of the Philippines.
More than other nations, developing countries need economic planning establishments—agencies manned by individuals with solid academic backgrounds preferably supported by experience. But planning is only one-half of the job of economic development. The other half is the government’s capacity to translate the planners’ blueprints and programs into well-adequately-financed and efficiently executed (read: corruption-free and delay-free) projects. The impression that government projects are slow to obtain final approval and to break ground is almost certainly the source of the apparently growing frustration with NEDA.
Truth to tell, there is, and there long has been, no need for a NEDA with full-Cabinet membership. The economic cluster of the Cabinet—this is composed of the Secretary of Finance, the Secretary of Socio-Economic Planning, the Secretary of Budget and Management, the Secretary of Trade and Industry, the Secretary of Public Works and Highways and the Secretary of Agriculture—represents a complete and powerful intra-Cabinet body for the discussion and execution (especially finance) of the economic blueprints generated by NEDA. Within the Cabinet cluster are found the officials responsible for the three elements of efficient economic-development execution—planning, financing and project management.
Even in a body as small as the Cabinet’s economic cluster, there has to be a point man for economic development. In our case that person is Carlos Dominguez III, the Secretary of Finance. At the critical point in Japan’s postwar return to economic preeminence that country’s government had a point man. He was the powerful and articulate head of MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry), Kiichi Miyazawa. The Duterte administration’s having someone who can perform as well, or even nearly as well, as Kiichi Miyazawa will serve to assuage the frustration and unease that seems to be increasingly felt about NEDA.