One of the most obvious guideposts for undertaking the revision of a governmental structure is to ensure that the resulting sub-structures are not so large as to exceed their capacity to operate efficaciously and efficiently. A government department that encompasses more than one major sector or area of society is bound, because of the overstretch, to fail on account of having too many things on its plate.
An excellent case in point is DOTC (Department of Transportation and Communications). Merely contemplating its legislative mandate—regulation and supervision of the nation’s transportation and communication systems—is enough to make a person gasp. Indeed, when the last Reorganization Commission announced the lumping together in one Cabinet department of both the transportation and the communication sector, I was moved to ask, do the reorganizers know what they’re doing?
Consider, first, the fact that factually and operationally there is no intimate connection between transportation and communication. True, every sector of the economy needs transportation and communication services, but the connection between transportation and communication is by no means as close as the connection between, say, social welfare and social development. It is as though the members of the Reorganization Commission did not accord enough importance and respect to this country’s transportation and communications sectors.
Then consider the size, reach and scope of the transportation sector and the communication sector. As things stand, the head of the DOTC office supervising the Metro Manila light rail transit system – the LRT and the MRT—is up to his neck in serious problems relating to the basic issues of system efficiency, passenger safety and financial soundness. The same can be said about the heads of the agencies regulating the issuance of things like car plates and drivers’ licenses (Land Transportation Authority) and the grant of franchises to buses, taxis and other public-utility transportation facilities (Land Transportation and Franchising Regulatory Board). Their offices are mere components of the transportation sector, yet they are barely managing to keep their regulatory heads above water.
That’s only land transportation. Throw in the maritime component of the transportation sector (the Maritime Industry Authority) and the air component (Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines) and one begins to grasp the enormity of the administrative and regulatory terrain that is allotted by law to DOTC. The NAIA tanim-bala criminal syndicate, the replacement of decrepit vessels and buses, road safety and airport development – these are but some of the numerous contentious issues that the Secretary of Transportation and Communication and his people have to find acceptable and lasting solutions for.
In the age of the Internet, satellite technology and broadband capability, communication is very much an equal partner of transportation in the operational mandate of DOTC. That DOTC has its work cut out for it in the communication sector is indicated by the growing complaint about the state of Philippine broadband capability. That capability is said to compare unfavorably with the similar capabilities in Southeast Asia. Indeed, it is said to be one of the slowest. And DOTC must be able to provide steady support for this country’s BPO industry, which has displaced India’s as the world’s largest.
And there is the highly technical and almost always controversial work of NTC (National Telecommunications Commission). One gets the impression that NTC has not been getting the full and undivided attention of current DOTC head, Secretary Joseph Abaya, and his predecessors, who have appeared to be deeply immersed in the work of DOTC’s transportation constituency.
I believe that I am echoing the sentiments of most knowledgeable Filipinos when I say that Secretary Abaya has not been the creative and problem-solving chief executive officer that a department as critically important as DOTC needs. Truth to tell, neither was former Secretary (and now presidential candidate) Mar Roxas.
Thus, we appear to have a pair of too-big situations here. DOTC is too big a department and needs to be split up into two full-fledged departments. And the DOTC CEO job is too big for Secretary Joseph Abaya. He simply has not been able to cope.
The good news is that Joseph Abaya will probably be gone after June 2016. But the problem of a humongously large and inefficacious DOTC will still be there, waiting to be solved with utmost speed by Congress.
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