Devolution, not revolution

Queen Elizabeth I is supposed to have remarked that she did not like wars as they have uncertain outcomes. Likewise, I do not like revolutions as they not only have uncertain outcomes but even catastrophic outcomes.

And yet so many of our country men, despairing of the numerous scandals plaguing our country, are advocating revolution and installing a revolutionary government.

They may not realize that we already had one, a revolution and a revolutionary government. Corazon C. Aquino did not become president constitutionally. The Batasan Pambansa proclaimed Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. the winner in the presidential election. The people power movement and the hastily crafted Freedom Constitution installed her as our president.

Like President Marcos before her, she exercised both executive and legislative powers. Her presidential decrees had the force of law. Her dictatorship ended when the 1987 Constitution was ratified and the 1st Congress convened.

We are fortunate that President Cory Aquino wielded and then yielded power peacefully. We may not be so fortunate the next time.

The revolutionary government of President Aquino declared two political reforms aimed at converting the Philippines into a real democracy: term limits and party list.

The term limits law puts limits to how many times an elected official can hold an elected office.

The aim was to give others a chance to serve the people. The term limits worked in the sense that others were given the opportunity to serve. Unfortunately, these others were the wives and siblings of the departing official. Thus, we had the spectacle of political revolving doors where two brothers alternate being mayor and congressman.

The party list was supposed to give representation to the marginalized sectors of society. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court ruled that a person who is not a security guard can lead a party that is supposed to represent security guards. The theory behind this decision is analogous to the relationship between a lawyer and his client. The representative, like a lawyer with his rigorous education and vast experience, could advance the interests of his clients or, in this case, his constituents far better than they ever could. The reality is we got Zaldy Co, a party-list member of Congress representing Ako Bicol.

We cite these cases to remind us that even a saintly revolutionary government motivated by the noblest of intentions can still make wrong decisions.

Finally, if despite the hope and promise ushered in by the Aquino revolutionary government, we still ended up in the present sorry state we are in now, why would another revolutionary government result in a better outcome?

Of course, some advocate less revolutionary measures such as converting our system of government from presidential to parliamentary. Those who advocate this reform dream that this will magically transform the Philippine Congress into the British Parliament. Sorry to disappoint — the Philippine Congress will transmogrify into the Pakistani Parliament. In that parliament, the honorable members continuously threaten the Prime Minister with a vote of no confidence resulting in the fall of the government unless he complies with their demands.

As to those who place their faith in technology such as Artificial Intelligence and Data Analysis to bring about better governance, we cite the bold prediction of President Bill Clinton that the internet will bring about democracy in China. Under the wrong hands the internet became an efficient tool of oppression.

By the way, the digitalization of our income tax returns has allowed our Bureau of Internal Revenue to be more efficient in its corruption. Using data analysis, they can now easily identify and target hapless taxpayers ripe for extortion.

We should heed the advice of Peter Drucker, a famous management guru who argued that managers should focus on their strength and not their weakness. We should not dwell on our failures but build on our successes. To illustrate, in business, let us say you have two companies, one unprofitable and the other profitable. Instead of devoting our resources to turning the unprofitable company around, we should instead marshal our resources on expanding the profitable company.

In governance, we should not focus on our failures — the Department of Education, the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, our Senators and Congressmen, etc.

We should focus on our successes, namely our local government executives, more specifically our Metro Manila mayors. Despite the limited powers granted them by our highly centralized government, they have performed admirably and, more importantly, their constituents appreciated and rewarded their performance by re-electing them by wide margins.

In the last election, Vico Sotto garnered 90% of the votes against Sarah Discaya. She, who had billions to spend, could not buy the voters of Pasig City. Filipino voters are discerning and appreciative of good performance. Seeing none in our legislators, they vote for celebrities who would at least entertain them.

We propose as an initial step devolving the powers of the failed national agencies to them.

Presently, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) is merely an administrative body with no operational, regulatory, and legislative authority. We propose amending the MMDA Law (Republic Act 7924), devolving as a first step, the powers of the following government agencies in Metro Manila to MMDA:

1.) Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH; no need for any comments)

2.) Department of Education (see our column, “Edcom II Year Two Report: Persistent misreading of the Philippine basic education situation,” BusinessWorld, March 3).

Education Secretary Angara, horrified that the DPWH is in charge of building our public schools and discovering that 1,000 classrooms turned over were not usable, called for devolving the building of public schools to local governments.

We should go further. We should devolve basic education to the MMDA. They will solve the school congestion problem in Metro Manila, which is the highest in the country. Secretary Angara estimates that it will take 30 years to solve our school congestion problem. And he is being optimistic.

3) Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (see our column, “LTFRB: cause of our traffic congestion,” BusinessWorld, Jan. 20)

Despite the growing population in Metro Manila, the LTFRB has cut by half the number of franchises that are presently in use, resulting in traffic congestion.

If this experiment in devolution succeeds, we can build on this success by replicating the model in Cebu, Davao, Iloilo, and other cities.

As possible models for a more responsive MMDA, we could look at two models, one international and the other domestic.

The international model would be the Greater London Authority. On Nov. 11, 1999, the British Parliament established the Greater London Authority. Prior to that, there was no single entity managing the entirety of London. Governance of the city was fragmented, and responsibilities for planning, transport, and other city-wide matters were divided between local boroughs and national authorities.

The Greater London Authority is a strategic regional authority, with powers over transport, policing, economic development, and fire and emergency planning. Three functional bodies —Transport for London, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, and the London Fire Commissioner — are responsible for delivery of services in these areas.

The domestic model is the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM). BARMM is only region in the Philippines that has its own government. It has a Regional Governor, executive departments, and its own unicameral legislature, the Regional Legislative Assembly. The fact that BARMM is not in the news is an indication that it is doing relatively well.

Will devolution eradicate corruption?

In a previous column (“Fighting corruption the managerial way,” BusinessWorld, Jan. 20), we argued that corruption is not a sin to be cleansed but rather a management problem to be solved. One way of managing corruption is by making it local: “The manager would seek to devolve most government functions to the lowest level of government knowing that corruption on the local level is better managed.

“Corruption on the national level is more comprehensive. National Government officials can steal not only from the taxes collected but also from the loans obtained by the government through domestic borrowing, i.e., treasury bills, international borrowings, i.e., samurai bonds, and international agencies such as JICA, ADB and World Bank. In effect they are also stealing from future taxes that will be collected to pay off the loans. The capacity of the local governments to borrow is more restricted.

“Accountability on the local level is more demonstrable and so more effective. In the last election of 2022, the President who cannot run for re-election after his six years, is not held accountable by the voters while the mayors who serve three years and can be elected for three terms can be held accountable by the voters. In the Metro Manila local elections, the mayors who performed well won by landslide margins while those who performed badly lost to their challengers.

“When corruption is on national levels, citizens who despair of the situation can only emigrate to another country. Citizens who despair of corruption in their town or province can always move to another locality. By voting with their feet, they also exert pressure on their local officials to moderate their greed.”

Dr. Victor S. Limlingan is a retired professor of AIM and a fellow of the Foundation for Economic Freedom. He is presently chairman of Cristina Research Foundation, a public policy adviser and Regina Capital Development Corp., a member of the Philippine Stock Exchange.