10-year-old cars to be junked

In their desire to encourage investments as well as to please the car manufacturers and distributors, the Board of Investments (BOI) alongside other government agencies, has come up with a “roadmap” designed to create a constant market to sell new cars to. The success of the design is hinged on their plan to remove 10-year-old cars and older from the streets.

When news about the “roadmap” was leaked to the media during the monthly “Usapang AAP” (Automobile Association of the Philippines), the BOI officials were very concerned that their plan would end up being “road killed” once car enthusiasts and the general motoring public heard about it because there would certainly be a great resistance even before the BOI could properly present its case.

Unfortunately, the BOI roadmap is yet another example of why government plans and policies fail. To begin with, the agency concerned mistakenly focused too much on their mandate of getting investors and securing investments without properly and fairly consulting other stakeholders. Whether it is out of zeal or sheer ignorance, government policymakers consistently leave out sectors and people who could make a positive contribution to policy determination as well as public information. Instead of calling only on the usual associations and experts, they should exercise more “due diligence.”

In the case of the BOI for example, I gather that they intentionally kept things under wraps especially from media. But in a country where foreigners say the word “secret” does not exist, the media and the public will find out sooner than later. In fact it defies logic why policy and decision makers don’t consult the mature members of media concerning such plans and decisions.

The media in general know the pulse and concerns of the public, media will eventually be the first to publicize such plans, and the media will be the first to praise or criticize what government dishes out. So why not invite the members of media? If you fail to convince media, you will most likely fail to convince the public.

Unfortunately, only the wiser and more mature politicians have seen the wisdom in consulting or inviting mature members of media as part of their “FGD” or focus group discussions. Many career and political appointee officials on the other hand have no friends in media. Make no efforts to make friends in media or dismiss media people as inaccessible or expensive. On the other hand, how much time, effort and money goes into crafting “roadmaps” that only end up as “road kill”?

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As far as the BOI roadmap and plans to junk or ban 10-year-old vehicles is concerned, I label it as creating new markets by force and imposition. This of course is in line with the over all strategy of lobbyists to deny Filipinos the right to choose what to buy and where to buy vehicles from particularly “local” or second hand cars.

In case you haven’t noticed, lobbyists and their pets in government have all but shut down the doors on “surplus” engines, killed the backyard manufacturing and registration of such vehicles, killed the right hand conversion business, got the Dept. of Finance to impose a P500,000 tax on second hand cars, got the Supreme Court to agree to ban the importation of all second hand cars, and effectively shutting down Port Irene. Now comes the proposal to ban 10-year-old cars.

Alongside this, there is now a PR move highlighting air pollution levels in Metro Manila and a movement for tax-free privileges for vehicles that are hybrid or use alternative fuels. I guess when you watch things long enough; you begin to see the hand behind it.

All this is intended to force millions of us to dump our “old” cars so that the car manufacturers and dealers can sell us their new models that are all designed for obsolescence or fall apart before 10 years.

Last I heard, “we” the market are suppose to have the choice to buy or not to buy. That choice is dependent on “our” needs, our capacity to pay, and how attractive or desirable the product or vehicles are. The attraction is not just about design or sales talk but also involves how mature the dealers are in terms of pricing, customer service etc. Creating markets through government intervention is not marketing. It is imposition. Sorry, but did they declare martial law while I was asleep?

I don’t know about you but if the BOI roadmap is implemented by force, or by law tomorrow, I would effectively be carless. My “newest” car is more than 20 years old. Most of my cars are from the ’60s and ’70s, yet most of them have been recently restored, in and out. Yes, I am clearly the exemption, but there are millions out there who will be hit by a ban on 10-year-old cars.

Yes I will be affected, but I am not totally against vehicle reduction whether through the BOI, the LTO or some other government agency. But I can only support a sane, rational and tested system of vehicle reduction and not one that only favors the car manufacturers who are represented by the same people who own banks, who are the same people who finance vehicles, who are the same people who insure vehicles, who are the same people who resell thousands upon thousands of second-hand cars that clients failed to pay for, who are the same people who resell or rebuild vehicles that were flooded, involved in collisions and should have been written off as junk or scrap, but were not.

Yes, I support the removal of taxis that are fully depreciated and deteriorated. Yes I support the removal of smoke belching jeepneys and 2-stroke tricycles that number in the hundreds of thousands, yes I support the trashing of buses and commercial trucks that spew diesel. But my support is immaterial because there are laws for vehicle testing; there are laws on smoke belching etc. But what has happened is that these laws and the facilities supporting them have become instruments of corruption, extortion and business opportunities for people in and outside of government. What was supposed to be for good was actually meant for PROFIT!

There is plenty of common ground for the common good but one must always consider the opinion and the inputs of the common man. Perhaps it was said best in the piece “Desiderata”: “Listen to the dull and the ignorant, for they too, have their stories.

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