Image by thepocnews via FlickrA related news article reports that many lawmakers and politicians were not surprised by some of the revelations of governmental anomalies bared by President Aquino in his first State of the Nation Address. Does that mean that these seasoned politicians and legislators knew about these problems and did not or could not do anything about them, either to prevent them or correct them? What have they been and are in power for? Surely, it is to serve the Filipino people's interests and not their own (smirk and rolling eyes).
I agree that not many solutions were offered in the SONA, but identifying the problems is the first step towards their proper resolution. The added value of these revelations, allegations as some would call them, is that they come under public scrutiny, and the common people become involved in the way government conducts business, not just the politicians and the bureaucrats, but also the people they swore to serve. Transparency as a key message and the basis for good governance came across quite clearly.
There were also some pretty concrete actions the president promised that his administration would undertake. Let's see if he will make good on them. This is why I copied his speech into my blog, as a yardstick that he created for himself and the bureaucracy. Also, while his SONA did not cover a whole range of issues (environment, agrarian reform, brain drain and migration, etc.), we should expect that all issues will be addressed in the coming months, and reported on after his first 100 days in office.
The president should be cautioned however about private-public partnerships, especially when these involve the tobacco industry. The primary goal of big business is to make big profits, as much as they can make, and quite often they will fight government regulation as much as they can, or in the words of Philip Morris, they will claim to support "sensible regulation", which is just another way of saying "regulation that benefits us, even if it is bad for government or bad for the public".
Very recently, the Civil Service Commission and the Department of Health jointly issued Memorandum Circular No. 2010-001 protecting the bureaucracy from tobacco industry interference. This issuance covers all national and local government agencies, bureaus, departments, government-owned and controlled corporations and state colleges and universities under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission. Full text in PDF format is available at this link: CSC-DOH JMC 2010-01.pdf
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