Losing sight of the ‘golden society’

The Marcos Jr. administration is just two months in office but it has already piled up vexing problems and issues on top of the ones he has inherited from the Duterte administration. At this rate whatever political capital has been accumulated by the administration is going to be quickly frittered away.

The latest signal of bureaucratic disarray is how the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) main and regional offices have been besieged by people seeking educational assistance. The recent educational ayuda mess is an unnecessary vexation of the people. It is not an isolated incident, happening simultaneously in several cities across the archipelago.

Here are lessons we glean from this experience:

1) If there is an existing system for undertaking a complex, nationwide task, as apparently the DSWD has one, use it. You cannot come up with a substitute on the fly. The new DSWD secretary apparently has disregarded the established system, now he is being suspected of doing so to promote his personal branding.

2) Private resources and communications channels like personal Facebook pages may supplement, but not substitute for the extensive, manned, and resourced communication and information channels of the DSWD. Secretary Erwin Tulfo seems surprised that people did not understand the terms and the process of the ayuda despite the full explanation provided on his personal Facebook page. That is the crux of the problem. He has conflated the public and personal communication systems, assuming they will be sufficient.

3) Local governments must have been surprised when Tulfo tossed the hot potato in their direction. The proposed spur-of-the-moment solution led mayors to ask for the details of this handover.

4) The current predicament of Tulfo may not be an isolated case. Thinking of the whole Cabinet, a system for similar “miscommunication” and moderating unfulfillable expectations should be established in the administration. I remember a good book on this subject, “Dealing with an Angry Public: The Mutual Gains Approach to Resolving Disputes,” by Lawrence Susskind and Patrick Field.

5) Cabinet secretaries, especially those who have no experience working in large public professional organizations, should quickly establish mutual respect and trust with their staff. Clearly, the greater challenge of interoperability rests with the secretary, not the department bureaucracy.

6) There is tremendous pressure on the department secretaries to earn points not only with President Marcos Jr. but with the media and the people as well. This is where the leadership of the President must come in with his pitch for unity in interoperability. How the President can do this is hampered by his being on the same boat—high in political capital but short in experience and expertise. As playing coach, his role as agriculture secretary does not inspire confidence and does not provide the moral and technical platform for coaching the other Cabinet members.

7) There are disconcerting images of the presidential decision-making environment at this time. Sure the President has countermanded the decision of Agriculture Undersecretary Leocadio Sebastian but has backtracked to approve the importation of half the original amount. But so many people attesting to Sebastian’s competence gives us the feeling that there may be another but hidden side to the current story.

8) The myth of government is that it can serve all the people all the time. The government can serve all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.

9) We now seem to be focusing on trees and losing sight of the forest. The focus of the nation has been on problems and issues that have emerged. When people voted in the new administration just over two months ago, they must have been voting for the consequences of presidential action (and inaction) over the next six years. The Marcos Jr. victory in the May elections, spiced with swirling tales of Tallano gold and similar myths, has led to the widely held expectations that Mr. Marcos would apply the Marcos wealth toward the betterment of Philippine society. That remains the big picture narrative, and I see it in people’s deep and wide expectations and demonstration of ayuda fever.

doyromero@gmail.com