First of three parts
CONGRESS has just endorsed for plenary approval the bicameral report on the rightsizing bill (Senate Bill 2502 and House Bill 7240). For the nth time, this is yet another attempt to reorganize the government, the executive branch in particular, in the last half a century or so. The public may not know the details of what is going to happen, but with the accumulation of firsthand experiences on how government operations impact individuals, those who will be tasked with sorting out the herculean mess may find citizen feedback helpful for such an organizational optimization process. It is thus in the interest of participatory governance that I wish to share this raw, tentative list of random notes:
The arrival of personal computers at the workplace marked the day policymakers thought efficiency would improve and the need for more warm bodies contained. Efficiency did not match the rise in popularity of social media and computer games, however, and creating more government offices has been a default response to every imagined problem.
The urge to please, it seems, is what drives problem-solving in government. Wherever politicians exist, spending follows. Unlike the boss of a private company, politicians are not inhibited by funding constraints. They know that while there is a budget deficit, the government can always borrow. Taxpayers should declare a holiday and celebrate the moment the government adopts a lifestyle below its means.
– Too many offices are not only a strain on the budget, but they also complicate coordination.
Let us take the case of the Department of Agriculture (DA). For an organization that has under its command at least 36 sub-agencies, the DA punches less than half its weight. Maybe it is just a case of not communicating itself well, but it looks more like an importer than a capacity-enabler for farmers who can produce and compete with imported food products. It has shown more empathy for consumers than farmers. This is not saying that the interests of consumers are not important, but the DA needs focus, and other agencies like the Department of Trade and Industry or the customs bureau and other law enforcement agencies must step up to better control smuggling and manage the local market that serves both consumers and local producers.
Probably endeared with Lucky 9, the DA has nine bureaus, nine attached agencies, nine corporations and nine overseas attaches.
The bureaus: Agricultural Training Institute, Bureau of Agricultural and Fisheries Engineering, Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Standards, Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), Bureau of Agricultural Research, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), Bureau of Plant Industry, Bureau of Soils and Water Management, and the Philippine Rubber Research Institute.
The attached agencies: Agricultural Credit Policy Council, Fertilizer and Pesticide Authority, National Fisheries Research and Development Institute, National Meat Inspection Service, Philippine Carabao Center (PCC), Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PCPDM), Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries, and the Philippine Fiber Industry and Development Authority (PFIDA).
The corporations: National Dairy Authority, National Food Authority, National Irrigation Administration (NIA), National Tobacco Administration (NTA), Philippine Coconut Authority, Philippine Crop Insurance Corp., Philippine Fisheries Development Authority, Philippine Rice Research Institute, and Sugar Regulatory Administration.
And the Foreign Agriculture Service Corps: Bangkok, Beijing, Brussels, Dubai, Geneva, Rome, Seoul, Tokyo, and Washington D.C.
To stakeholders, these agencies lack clarity at best and coordination-challenged at worst. Their interconnection builds an assembly line for bottlenecks and the grounds for inefficiencies, corruption and red tape. Fisheries-related offices (Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Standards, National Fisheries Research and Development Institute, Philippine Fisheries Development Authority), for example, can be confusing to ordinary fisherfolk. To whom will they address their miseries? Will it help them if things were simpler? This bunch can be merged as one under BFAR.
Just to stress that water supply is dependent on forests and watersheds, NIA and local waterworks outfits should be moved to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Coping with climate change in ways that promote the interests of upland farmers will require additional support for agroforestry and hasten the development of bamboo and abaca industries under the PFIDA.
The NTA can be devolved to the provinces in Regions 1 and 2. PCPDM is necessary to boost the financial viability of agriculture-based and agri-industrial-related enterprises, and ultimately allow local production to compete with agriculture imports; relatedly, the likes of PCC can be abolished or downsized as a unit of BAI.
The DA represents a small sample size for a similar survey of other major departments. But it more than indicates the need for a hard and closer look at how efficiency and coordination can be improved in many other public offices.
– Research is important. Focus and synergy is needed.
Research inputs that government scientists can easily control (e.g., software, knowledge events and products, formal and informal discussions, reviews, etc.) can be better provided by a concentrated facility instead of specialized units scattered all over the place.
Training and research feed on each other's outputs — it might promote synergy to merge all related units, government-wide, into one or two knowledge management super hubs.
For natural sciences (fisheries, farm technologies, environment, climate change, etc.), research must all happen at the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). The promotion of technological inventions, innovations, adaptation and intellectual property rights can be better served by DOST.
For social sciences (economy, social welfare, public administration, etc.), research can be done almost exclusively by the Philippine Institute of Development Studies (and for which adequate funding and necessary resources must be provided).
