"If Senator Go is really serious about this, he might consider levelling up his thinking to a more meaningful “Angat-probinsya.”"
"If Senator Go is really serious about this, he might consider levelling up his thinking to a more meaningful “Angat-probinsya.”"For starters this week, here’s a quick reminder about face masks that might help to dispel a potentially dangerous fallacy:
The common surgical mask that’s most widely used today is designed to keep germs IN, not out. When a surgeon is operating, that mask is protecting the patient from him, not the other way around. So if you’re in a crowd that’s standing too near just one mask-less guy who happens to be infected (even without symptoms), then your own masks won’t help you. Better to throw the clueless guy out of the room instead.
In short, wearing surgical masks works only when everyone, bar none, is doing it. Which brings up the question: Can Filipinos be relied upon to wear those masks regularly, after we regain a “new normal,” when the intention behind wearing them is to protect others and not yourself? Would we care enough about others to accept this imposition? The new normal could take us out to 2021 before a vaccine is developed. The answer tells us whether or not we in fact deserve to be succored from any future resurgence of this epidemic.
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At the President’s latest Cabinet meeting covered by the media where he announced extension of the lockdown in some areas to May 15, I was pleased to hear the ubiquitous Senator Bong Go hold forth on a planned legislative initiative of his that he christened “Balik-Probinsya.”
The irony seemed obvious. The provinces where the lockdown was relaxed from “enhanced” to “general” might be described as relatively rural and/or underdeveloped. And yet it is to provinces like them where the teeming crowds of Metro Manila should gradually be relocated, so that an enhanced lockdown in the capital against a future epidemic like this one need not be so prolonged or so brutal.
At this point, the senator’s initiative is very much in early days. His is a fine idea that unfortunately has already been around a half century, even before he was born. One of my first jobs was with the investment bank Bancom in the mid-seventies, where I joined a group intent on fleshing out the radical “integrated area development” concepts being pushed by Bancom’s visionary leader Sixto Roxas III. His was an overriding faith in the rationality of planning and the power of corporatism and market forces, which by themselves together could lift entire rural communities out of poverty.
The years since have, alas, proven unkind to such optimism. The economic forces that drive ordinary people to leave the comfort of their rural origins and take their chances in strange and hostile urban settings like Metro Manila are simply too powerful. Just as forceful are the risk/reward considerations that drive investors to put their money in the same urban (or at least “urbanizable”) settings, where (undefined) uncertainties and (defined) risks are low enough to justify their investment.
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If Senator Go is really serious about this, he might consider levelling up his thinking from just “Balik-Probinsya” to a more meaningful “ANGAT-Probinsya.” The line of reasoning is straightforward: The urban poor in Manila will not return to the provinces unless there are jobs there. The jobs will not appear in the provinces unless investors put money there. And investors will not bet their money there unless their usual concerns are being, or will be, addressed.
The list of those concerns is not long. Today they mainly include: reliable power; good infrastructure (distribution logistics and digital connections); peace and order; a low-cost, manageable, and trainable workforce that won’t beat them up with unreasonable demands; and local governments that partner with them instead of trying to milk them.
None of these is anything that investors should be expected to bring along. All of this is the responsibility of government. Building out the power backbone and last mile together with infrastructure; keeping the peace; educating workers’ families and providing them with essential services like housing and schooling; administering rules and regulations impartially—all of these are the job of government.
But the chronic shortcomings we see in these areas indict the Manila-centric shape of our current governance. The distance between the central government (which sets policy and allocates resources nationwide) and the local governments especially at the municipal and barangay levels (which implement policy and disburse those resources to the citizens) was measured—very unflatteringly—by the volume of complaints that attended the otherwise well-intentioned responses of government to the COVID crisis.
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At the same time, it is wishful thinking to expect the country’s 81 provinces, nearly 200 cities, and over a thousand towns to individually—each by themselves—respond properly to a national crisis like the epidemic, let alone address the investor concerns listed above. This is simply too much fragmentation for implementation, let alone for planning or risk preparation.
Here is where the bright boys at DILG—which has been a frontline agency in the fight against the virus—have come up with another bright idea. Their idea is to put enough teeth into the currently toothless regional development councils and convert them from purely recommendatory bodies into substantive planners and implementers of regional development programs.
The RDC presently comprises, within a given region, its provincial governors, mayors of cities, mayors of provincial capitals and other major towns, and the regional directors of the different national government agencies. This membership already puts together both national and local levels of governance through their respective regional officials and representatives.
Who better, after all, than a regional development council to determine which parts of which provinces should be hooked up first to the national grid? Or determine where the roads, bridges, railways, and ports need to be built. Or deliver social services—yes, in particular the building of hospitals and healthcare systems. Or look over the shoulders of provincial, city and town officials to make sure they’re doing their jobs properly.
The local governments are expecting a windfall soon once the Supreme Court’s “Mandanas ruling” is implemented to give them a substantially larger portion of the nation’s tax collections. These are monies that the regional development councils would be in the best position to determine how to spend, so that Senator Go’s “Balik-Probinsya,” after fifty-odd years, finally starts to become real.
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In closing, allow me to post a quick shout-out to Dra. Mylene Vicuna, an internist based in Las Vegas, who was kind enough to refill the prescription for my wife’s maintenance medicines while she remains stranded in that desert gambling oasis. Dra. Mylene happens to be the daughter-in-law of my wife’s Upsilon Sigma Phi/Sigma Delta Phi batchmate, Will Vicuna, also from the casino capital. To father and daughter, marami pong salamat from a grateful and lonely hubby.
Readers can write me at gbolivar1952@yahoo.com.