“What management style do people see these days?”
For this article, I am borrowing the title of a popular sitcom in the mid-70s till 80s, although here I compare the management styles of some of our presidents.
In PRRD’s first few months, he fired a close Davao-based supporter as head of a GOCC which impacts on agricultural productivity when he learned that the guy tried to solicit alleged “party contributions” worth 40 million pesos from a contractor who had access to presidential ears.
Since the information was reported by someone who Duterte trusted to tell the truth, the agency head was instantly shown the door.
The head of a rather obscure agency tried to solicit millions of pesos in exchange for a consultancy contract from a famous architect and was found to be “living the life” with more bodyguards than the executive secretary.
When the architect reported the attempted shake-down, Duterte fired the guy outright.
When I was MECO chairman, the entire board of a GOCC went to Taiwan to entice investors. The chairman of a huge conglomerate who had investments in the Philippines tendered a dinner to honor the visiting officials and invited many pillars of the Taiwan business community.
The president of the GOCC came, but the chairman was nowhere to be found, embarrassing me and the host. I found out that he was gallivanting with some friends who tagged along, savoring Taipei nightlife.
In a meeting with PRRD a month later to discuss Taiwan-RP relations, I reported the embarrassing incident. With anger writ on his face, he called for SAP Bong Go and bellowed: “Fire that guy!”.
In an act of mercy towards the person later, Duterte gave him an insignificant post as undersecretary for something that held little power.
In PNoy’s time, I was appointed to head an agency which inherited 172 billion in debt due to previous over-importation of rice at sky-high prices.
So much was the stockpile in our warehouses that we had to lease some 400 additional bodegas on top of our owned warehouses, with the standard “first-in, first-out” in inventory management thrown to the winds.
Right after PNoy’s first SONA where he made NFA the exhibit A of the previous administration’s corruption, I described our situation as “swimming in rice,” imported at that. We had no space to stock up on domestic palay purchases.
With the president’s permission, I organized a three-man fact-finding team to do an independent study of the financial and operational mess I inherited, since COA, likewise requested by the economic managers to do a special audit, would take time to complete its task.
After three months of investigation, the private-sector sourced team of financial and procurement experts was ready to present its findings, so we arranged that they present their findings to the president.
In Malacanang, we faced PNoy and members of the economic team, with the president asking difficult questions probingly, at one time, calculator in hand, questioning the rice demand figures.
Considering that there were millions of Filipino OFWs who did not consume rice in the country, why was DA and NFA using 132 kilos as per capita consumption, he asked?
Accordingly, the DA’s Bureau of Agricultural Statistics revised the previous consumption figures to 120, which is still the demand metric till now.
After two hours in the conference table, PNoy copied the report to a USB and then told me not to publicize the results as it might affect relations with the rice-exporting country, an ASEAN member.
Then he directed me to institute reforms in the import permit system and reduce our legacy debt, which we did. From 172 billion in legacy debt, our team trimmed it to 148 billion in less than two years, and drastically reduced NFA funded importation from 2.25 million metric tons to only 200,000.
We likewise bid out permits for a fee, instead of giving these “free” on the basis of a queer “first come, first served method.” Then we restructured our short-term debts to medium-term, with the help of both local and international banks.
In another agriculture-supervised GOCC, PNoy learned about shenanigans in bidding and bloated performance reports. He asked NEDA to verify information he was getting.
While he was guest of honor in the agency’s anniversary, he fired the administrator on the spot.
We write this article to show how Aquino II and Duterte I acted swiftly when confronted with clear cases of corruption reported to them.
Presidents have different management styles, different strokes, if you may. Some hesitate to act decisively, some too quickly, some deliberately.
What management style do people see these days?
