My family and I took the fast airport train from the KL Sentral station for a morning of exploring this amazing new city located 40 km south of Kuala Lumpur that is now the seat of Malaysian Federal government. We were traveling by ourselves and following the instruction of the concierge at KL Shangri-la, we hired a taxi at the Putrajaya train station to take us around the development.
A minute out of the train station and what we saw was definitely impressive. A modern bridge welcomed us to the 4,500-hectare government center. On first impression, Putrajaya strikes you as some kind of a mirage, a dream as wonderful and seemingly unreal as the miracle that is Malaysia today.
But it is no mirage. Several government offices, including that of the prime minister, were moved to this new seat of power in 1999. What strikes you as you enter Putrajaya is the attempt to make modern development coexist with nature. A large part of Putrajaya is devoted to greenery and water bodies. The city is marked by modern domed buildings and landscaped gardens.
Government offices, a mosque, a convention center, a Shangri-La hotel, a commercial center and housing for the bureaucrats were carefully laid out in the planned city. The centerpiece of its landscape is the 600-hectare man made lake. This is definitely Mahathir’s monument to his Vision 2020...to convince Malaysians that the vision is no pipe dream. Putrajaya is something they can see and touch now.
Putrajaya is poised to be a fully integrated and self contained city, a part of an ambitious Malaysian scheme, the Multimedia Supercorridor. The envisioned corridor is a projected business zone replete with high-technology facilities, intended to run from the Petronas Towers in downtown Kuala Lumpur southward through Putrajaya to the new international airport. Nearby is Cyberjaya, a sort of economic processing zone for the new age industries.
With the latest in telecommunication, transportation and infrastructure technologies made part of its design, Putrajaya certainly gives the impression that it is the Malaysian response to the challenge of the new age of information and communication. But the jury is still out on whether it will also manage to provide a level of efficiency in government service characteristic of this new age.
Putrajaya reminded me of the vision of former Cebu Governor Lito Osmeña who proposed the conversion of Clark Field into a new government center and national capital. The reasons Lito advanced then were the same reasons the Malaysians put up Putrajaya, which is essentially to decongest the principal capital city and spread out development.
Lito made this proposal in 1992 when he was running for Vice President in the ticket of former President Ramos. The Malaysians started to build Putrajaya in the mid 90s. Development work is still going on but it is now living proof of Malaysia’s tiger economy status. I can’t help thinking that we might have thought of something like this ahead of them. But they carried it out. The best we could manage is the graft ridden Centennial thingy in Clark.
There is no doubt the progress of Malaysia had been breathtaking. The question now is, can Malaysia sustain it? There are now voices within Malaysia who are wondering if maybe it is time to slow down a bit. The new Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi is apparently listening to advice that would review a number of big ticket flagship projects undertaken under 22 years of think big policies.
Already put on hold is the $3.8-billion double track train system that would run up and down the country’s coast. Maybe they don’t urgently need that new train system now. Also under review is the multi-billion dollar Bakun hydroelectric dam project in Sarawak. The project had not only been controversial but plagued with problems including cost overruns.
The new Prime Minister has recently been working on making the bureaucracy more responsive. He had been doing spot checks of front line agencies, something like what Ate Glo had been doing. He has focused on dealing with the entrenched culture of red tape and graft in the bureaucracy, notably in agencies like Immigration, Land Registration, Police, Transport department and customs.
Some fears have been expressed about the dangers of inflation if the high level of government expenditures is not checked. With the basic investments in infrastructure already in place, it would be easier for Malaysia to ease up the pressure on government expenditures compared to our case.
One thing going for Malaysia is its natural resources, including oil. The attention it has given to palm oil is largely responsible for its ascendancy in the world market at the expense of our coconut oil. It also has less than a third of our population at about 25 million to our over 80 million. Some would also point out its internal security law that allows indefinite detention of political dissidents for its fast economic growth.
But I wonder if the sacrifice of personal political freedom is really that big a factor in Malaysia’s growth. As I have pointed out, the Marcos dictatorship similarly suppressed political dissent yet failed to achieve for us what Mahathir has achieved for Malaysia. It is just our tragedy that we are unable to produce even one world class leader like Mahathir, someone who can lead a lethargic and fractious people to development.
Having expressed my admiration for Malaysia’s economic development however, I doubt if I could survive a day here as a journalist. The new Prime Minister just fired the chief editor of the New Straits Times upon the complaint of the Saudi Arabian government. An editorial had apparently offended the Saudi government and the complaint was given due course by the new Prime Minister.
In sum, it is clear that Mahathir has set his nation on the fast track to development that should be easy enough for his successors to sustain. Malaysians have to fumble terribly to reverse this course. In our case, we still have to find that leader who will set us on the right course. I doubt we would be able to progress in a significant manner in the next six years.
Fast forward to first week of February... Erap is adjusting to his new house near Stanford Medical Center in California’s Silicon Valley, waiting for his knee operation. He wanted to blend in the local high tech scenery and was just learning the joys of e-mail and the World Wide Web.
One morning, Erap came out of the house and went straight to the mailbox. He opened it then slammed it shut stormed back in the house. A little later he came out of the house again went to the mailbox and again opened it, slammed it shut again. Angrily, back into the house he went.
After a few minutes, Erap came out again, marched to the mailbox, opened it and then slammed it closed harder than ever. Puzzled by his actions a neighbor asked him, "Is something wrong?"
To which he replied, "There certainly is!"
"Would you want to tell me? Maybe I could help, "the neighbor offered.
"It’s my stupid computer," Erap explains. "It keeps saying, "YOU’VE GOT MAIL." BOO CHANCO’s e-mail address is bchanco@bayantel.com.ph