GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS CANNOT AFFORD to be negligent and overlook some of the functions or responsibilities of their offices, simply because a time of reckoning always comes. Thus, the president, Cabinet secretaries, governors, mayors and the rest of officialdom should draw up comprehensive and detailed lists of their mandated functions, the things they should do, and the natural and man-made disasters that could hit their respective areas of responsibilities.

For example, the president should order the local government secretary to require governors, mayors, and barangay officials to conduct a survey to identify areas susceptible to natural or man-made disasters?like floods, landslides, fire, sabotage, epidemic, etc.?in each of our 42,000 barangays. The lists are needed for planning purposes, for forced ranking and prioritization in budget allocations, for setting physical targets and timelines, for checking preparedness against calamities, and for monitoring government performance vs goals.

In the preparation, review and legislation of the annual national budget, both executive and legislative officials must follow a proper hierarchy of needs in the budgeting and spending of scarce government funds. Utmost priority must be given to the protection of human lives against natural and man-made calamities; next is public and private property, then programs for the delivery of vital public services (e.g., medical and health, education, poverty alleviation, irrigation, roads and bridges). Expenditures that are not absolutely necessary in the lives of the people, like ornamental as against functional projects, should be last priority.

The highly wasteful allocation of public funds stemming from the failure to follow a hierarchy of needs is dramatically exemplified by the ZTE-NBN deal, which would have pushed through had it not been exposed. The government had already contracted to spend a whopping $329 million for that contract, which, even without the alleged gross overprice, was very expensive primarily because the intention was to link up 42,000 barangays nationwide?this, despite the fact that we already have good-enough alternative means of communication (e.g., cell phones) in some 1,500 towns and cities.

In stark contrast, the government has not bothered to plan and spend for the most basic need?protection of human lives against recurring natural calamities nationwide.
Thus, when an inevitable reckoning came with ?Ondoy,? the government could not hide its negligence and helplessness. The same government?which committed earlier to spend the staggering amount of $329 million, or P15.5 billion on the ZTE contract (which was not even about a matter of life and death for Filipinos)?was exposed as having failed to spend even a measly P1 million for rubber boats to be used during killer floods.
?MARCELO L. TECSON,
martecson@yahoo.com