Infrastructure and dictatorship

One of our wealthiest citizens has been quoted to have said that infrastructure development is faster under dictatorships. I hope this does not encourage President Rodrigo Duterte to proceed with his threat of declaring a revolutionary government as a way of accomplishing that. Besides, his threat has clearly been in response to criticisms of his mercurial policies, or desire for personal vendetta against critics, rather than as a way of hastening development.

Moreover, it seems that Enrique Razon was referring only to hard, physical infrastructure. Was he advocating this as primary over other values for which we have sacrificed so much, such as social infrastructure? (Health, education, basic human rights such as freedom of expression, civilized state policies under a rule of law.)

We have had our taste of authoritarianism, and we know it didn’t work for us. The economy ended up in shambles because the crony capitalism that it engendered discouraged legitimate investments, foreign or local. Besides, the assault on human rights has been traumatic.

To be fair, there are indeed authoritarian governments around us that have propelled national economies forward into the first world. Singapore was blessed to have had Lee Kwan Yew, a brilliant and benevolent leader of 3 million or so people, who, typical of Chinese mandarins, thought long term and focused on bettering the lives of his citizens. He also for a time controlled media and disallowed criticism of his policies. Because his people felt the benefits of his rule; they accepted his authoritarianism.

Park Chung Hee, who preceded Ferdinand Marcos and ruled South Korea for almost 20 years as its dictator built the foundations for transforming his country’s economy into what it has become today, one of the leading countries in the industrial and innovation economy.

What made the difference?

Lee Kwan Yew was certainly trustworthy. He also ensured that Singapore law enabled him to legitimately become probably the highest paid chief executive of a country. In fact, he ensured that he could hire the best and the brightest into Singapore’s civil service and state-owned corporations by paying them wages and benefits that were so generous that civil servants would be afraid to lose their jobs, if charged with corruption. Although theoretically his government was a democracy, Lee Kwan Yew’s political party was so popular that it continued to rule, as it still does today, even after he had passed away.

When President Cory Aquino attempted to double our civil servants’ salaries by reducing the bureaucracy to half its size by offering early retirement benefits, the line quickly formed among the desirable civil servants who were confident that they could find jobs in the private sector. And we would have been left with the undesirables. President Cory had to put a stop to the early retirement program.

When Park Chung Hee became president of South Korea, 80% of Koreans lived in rural areas.

He had the wisdom, with the help of a consultant, of putting great focus on upgrading rural infrastructure through a participatory approach. The Saemaul Undong movement provided government funding for construction materials, while the people in the communities provided voluntary labor. The rural people were also given the option of deciding what their priority would be for the use of the materials (school buildings, homes, markets, roads).

Because they had faith in the leadership of their government, the rural folk of South Korea put in a lot of work to better their living conditions in partnership with the government. Infrastructure development was effectively a public-private partnership between the government and the people in their communities. Park Chung Hee also encouraged the creation of chaebols or industrial conglomerates, and there has been no information that he personally shared in the new wealth that the economies of scale generated. His leadership was so strongly trusted that the Saemaul Undong movement transformed Korea into a largely urbanized and prosperous nation that it is today.

Ho Chi Minh, referred to as “Uncle Ho” is revered today by his people as their “inspiration.” Although he had absolute power and popularity, this patriotic hero chose to live a simple life. As president of the unified Vietnam, he chose to live in a small house behind the palace.

Do we have a benevolent leader in sight to whom we would be willing to entrust some of our freedoms and human rights? I don’t see any. Perhaps, such a person would not have a taste for politics.

There is still lots of democratic space within which we can in fact make infrastructure development happen. Perhaps to hasten this, we should consider lessening the politics by reducing the number of elections. It is difficult to sustain development initiatives in the rural areas when elections are held every three years. I think we have seen some benefits from the six-year terms we have provided for national level executives.

Should we consider moving into a Parliamentary system?

Our direct national elections have given us populists including a movie star whom we convicted of plunder, and who got absolute pardon from his successor whose legitimacy was under question. And today we have an obvious demagogue who is incredibly popular among the citizenry because of his colorful language and ability to manipulate the media, especially social media.

Fortunately, to be fair, he has put in place competent economic managers whom he seems to respect and allow to do their thing. So the economy is still healthy enough; but much of the economic benefits are still ending up with a few.

When will we be blessed with mature leaders who are not driven by personal motives or by petty childish concerns such as vendettas against critics or past opponents? It doesn’t look like a realizable prospect.

Perhaps, since a brilliant, mature and benevolent leader is hard to find in our country, we must continue to enhance our democratic institutions and protect the rule of law. We are certainly better off with a balance of power, a Constitution that protects basic human rights and the rule of law. Let us hope that given current threats to weaken and dismantle these institutions, we will have enough leaders who will assert themselves to protect them.

Teresa S. Abesamis is a former professor at the Asian Institute of Management and an independent development management consultant.

tsabesamis0114@yahoo.com