Local governments

Last Thursday, this paper’s editorial lamented that “in 2014, for the fourth straight year, mayors and other local executives again topped the list of public officials who faced graft complaints, with 2,053 cases filed by the ombudsman… the high number also shows the extent of a problem that has been the subject of complaints from investors and many other people who have had to do business with local government units.”

An investor who decides to risk capital here after being convinced of P-Noy’s Daang Matuwid is likely to be disappointed as soon as he starts step one for establishing a business. That’s because he must deal with a local government. Getting a mayor’s permit and the clearances from the barangay will expose the rottenness of local government corruption.

As our editorial observed,  P-Noy’s “anti-corruption campaign has barely trickled down the ranks of the bureaucracy, particularly in local government units whose political leaders run their turfs like independent republics. Red tape is designed into systems and procedures to give every official and clerk an opportunity to receive ‘facilitation fees.’

“Bidding procedures are rigged to favor relatives and cronies of local officials. LGU red tape is one of the biggest reasons for the country’s low ranking in every international survey on ease of doing business.”

Efforts to simplify procedures and promoting transparency at the LGU level have not progressed much. While some LGUs have joined national efforts to computerize the process of getting government approvals to start a business through a one stop shop, there had been no enthusiastic acceptance among most LGUs.

Maybe it is the three-year term of office that’s causing the problem to worsen. Not only do local officials have to recover campaign costs quickly, there is also no incentive for them to have long-term views like providing real public service.

Where I live in Quezon City, I am not surprised that City Hall officials constantly break their own rules in things like zoning, for instance. White Plains is supposed to be a residential area (R-1) but Mayor Bistek’s people have been granting permits for commercial establishments in already traffic choked Katipunan.

While I am resigned to Katipunan being eventually rezoned as commercial, I think City Hall should make sure establishments like restaurants have ample parking spaces for customers. Last week, I got stuck near a restaurant called Bagoong Club because a parked black SUV blocked the only northbound lane available for traffic to flow towards Ateneo.

Our barangay officials are useless in enforcing traffic rules or for much of anything. That explains why there is a perpetual traffic jam on Katipunan. All that smoke from idling engines is bad for the health of residents.

Let us not get started about the agony of getting Mayor’s Permits. A sister of mine had been constantly complaining about the problems she has had through the years getting City Hall to appreciate that she has a business that provides employment to Kyusi residents. She deserves a medal from Mayor Bistek, not headaches from his officials.

Then there is garbage collection. Metro Manila is a very dirty metropolis, all 16 cities and one town, and one wonders where all the hundreds of millions of pesos being paid to haul garbage are going. It is no secret there are so-called ghost collections because for most of the mayors, may pera sa basura.

If there is a visible effort on the part of city officials to make the cities clean, I am sure people will do their part. After all, Pinoys abroad don’t litter. They behave like pigs at home because the surroundings resemble a pigsty.

Now they are saying they want Federalism? If we have LGU officials with the caliber of Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, yes that may work. But Gov. Joey is a rarity. Jesse Robredo is dead. And a Metro Manila resident will find it difficult to prove his or her Mayor runs an honest and efficient government that actually serves the public.

We are very focused on who the next President will be. Maybe it is time for us to subject the contenders for local positions to some exacting standards because the ones who will get elected as mayors will likely have more impact on the quality of our daily lives.

Joker’s complaint

Former Sen. Joker Arroyo sent a letter to my editor last week complaining about my supposed revisionist recollection of recent history.

Joker complained that I blamed him and Cory Aquino for failure to adequately plan for our energy needs so that power blackouts happened towards the end of Tita Cory’s term. Joker used an alibi, that “the power blackout started in late 1989, a good two years after” he had left the post of Executive Secretary. Joker then goes on to say that the crisis was the result of 14 years of bad energy planning before the EDSA revolution.

It shows how little Joker understands the nature of energy planning. The failure during the two years he was in office to make the right decisions (build power plants) is at the root of the problems two years later. In energy planning, we take a long term view. It takes time to put a new power plant on line. We prepared a Ten Year Energy Plan during our watch and revised it yearly but they junked it right after EDSA and resumed doing it just recently.

What happened during Joker’s watch? They relegated energy to the backburner. The Department of Energy was abolished and instead made into an Office of Energy Affairs under the Executive Secretary. The late Vicente Paterno held the position of Deputy Executive Secretary for Energy for just a year. He was frustrated enough at being ignored (sidelined by Joker, his gatekeeper) so he just decided to run for Senator. I know because I worked directly under him and he constantly complained.

The worse part is that they dumped the nuclear plant. I can understand that political decision but you cannot discard 620 MW without putting up a replacement. Worse, they failed to anticipate the energy requirements arising from the burst in economic activities that came with the worldwide euphoria over the fall of Marcos. If they just implemented the Energy Plan we prepared, they might have been alright.

I guess they were complacent about energy because we competently did our job of securing our energy requirements. They didn’t feel it was an urgent issue, a mistake as it turned out.

Remember that the Department of Energy was created in response to a worldwide energy crisis that caught us with 98 per cent of our energy needs supplied by Middle Eastern oil. By the time EDSA happened, domestic sources accounted for about half of our needs. If that is 14 years of bad planning, let’s have more of it.

When we started, the country didn’t know what it had by way of energy resources. We started an inventory of domestic energy resources from scratch.

By the time EDSA came, we were the world’s second largest user of geothermal energy, had some domestic oil and had done the necessary spade work that made Malampaya possible. The local energy sources from geothermal, coal, oil, natural gas being exploited today were identified and their development started during our watch. What did Joker’s watch contribute? Blackouts!

As for Joker’s brods, some of those appointed to PNOC (not all) didn’t seem to be the cream of Upsilon. The professional staff at PNOC (mostly former EXXON) figured the brods only got there through the Joker connection.

I like Upsilonians and some of my best friends are Lonsis. One of them who is close to Joker and is also a close friend of mine “warned” me not to engage Joker in a drawn out public discussion because he has so much time in his hands right now. I told him that is alright because it is good for Joker as well as for me to have some mental exercise that makes retirement more interesting.

I realize Joker cannot know everything that happened below the stratosphere where he operated because they did have their hands full at that time in our nation’s history. Gringo and Enrile seemed more compelling, for example. And Joker was also busy battling Tita Cory’s Council of Trent. I am not being revisionist, Joker… I am being factual about things I know.

I want to end, like Joker’s complaint, with some erudite Latin phrase. But since I am not as learned as he is, I had to google it.  Quidquid excusatio prandium pro or as Google puts it, Any excuse for lunch… I will arrange with our mutual Upsilonian friend.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco