Overstaffed, but undermanned

Anyone dealing with a government office gets the feeling that the bureaucracy is overstaffed, yet undermanned. There are many people sitting behind desks or milling around, but few attend to the needs of citizens who pay the salaries of government employees.

Worse, few are really qualified to perform the jobs they are supposed to do. We keep on creating new agencies supposedly to respond to a need, but once created, the agencies flop due to bad staffing.

Take DICT as an example. We know we need a government unit to lead our digital journey. But Duterte didn’t take its mission seriously. He appointed a former senator who had no clue what his job entailed to head it. But he got a generous intelligence fund allocation supposedly to enhance cybersecurity.

Fast forward to today… A DICT Usec admits they do not have the qualified staff to deal with the cybersecurity problems of government agencies. Indeed, they don’t even have permanent staff, just temporary job order staff.

The role of DICT is almost as important as national defense, perhaps even more so as DND should by now be moving to modern ways of warfare using digital systems.

Our national payroll for bureaucrats is growing and growing, but with nothing much to show by way of proper service being rendered to taxpayers.

In the national budget, P2.042 trillion goes to maintenance and other operating expenses, and personnel services gets the second largest share at P1.621 trillion. The government is also the largest employer, with over 1.4 million civil servants in its payroll.

There is no doubt that our government could be more efficient if there are less bureaucrats. But that’s not the point of the government for our leaders. The government is their family business and provides a deep pocket that covers all their personal costs. That’s what confidential funds are all about.

So, elected politicians reward their supporters with employment in government. When regular positions are filled, new positions are created on contractual/ project-hire/ casual or daily basis. This practice strengthens political family dynasties. Supporters given public service jobs protect their politician- sponsor to ensure continued employment and promotion in the organization.

Our lawmakers pass laws requiring extensive regulatory processes that create gatekeepers, lengthy bureaucratic procedures or red tape.  Our patronage system works by giving the voting constituency/ family/ friends of politicians the privilege of access to public services and the rest of the population must pay bribes through them for public transactions.

Because there are so many bureaucrats, they all have to justify their existence. They do that by creating more and more rules that make the life of ordinary citizens more burdensome, even at the barangay level. That’s why we are kulelat in the list of countries being rated for the ease of doing business. We have an Anti-Red Tape Law and an agency to implement it, but it is a failure so far. Indeed, its first head was fired for trying to do his duty of easing red tape.

Many surveys have confirmed that the top deterrent to foreign direct investments or FDI is bureaucratic red tape and corruption. There are other issues, like inadequate infrastructure, and inconsistency and uncertainty in policies, but are not as crucial as fixing the ease of doing business.

The process of obtaining permits and licenses is cumbersome and time-consuming, often requiring interactions with multiple government agencies. Corruption within these agencies also delay approvals and increase costs for investors as they are pressured to pay bribes or facilitation fees to expedite processes. The Corruption Perception Index as of 2022 ranks the Philippines at 116th in the list of 180 countries by scoring 33 percent (below the global average of 43 percent).

At the LGU level, they make it tough for anyone to get a business permit. According to the World Bank, it took 13 steps and 33 days to get a business permit. Yet, one city, Valenzuela, has been able to grant business permits in less than 10 minutes.

Our global ranking for ease of doing business puts us among the last at 95. My fellow columnist, Tony Lopez, pointed out that between 2016 and 2020, two of the world’s most corrupt countries, Ukraine and Russia, did better than us, Ukraine, from 112th to 64th, up 43 pct; and Russia, from 92nd to 28th, up 69 pct.

Lopez: “In the last 2020 World Bank EODB survey, the Philippines was No.1 in being the worst or the slowest, or with the most difficult procedures in ASEAN in three categories — starting a business, construction permits, registering property. Can you imagine ASEAN countries like Laos and Cambodia treating their investors better?”

Apparently, the Philippine bureaucracy expanded faster than the population. From 1960 to 1997, the population increased by 160 percent while government personnel more than doubled in size from only 360,000 in 1960 to 1.37 million in 1997 (282 percent). Compared to four ASEAN countries, the Philippines has the highest wage bill as a percentage of total expenditure.

And it is not just the mom-and-pop enterprises that suffer red tape trying to get business permits. Big investors in critical infrastructure suffer as well. It took close to 10 years for San Miguel to get the go-signal for MRT 7, and a little less than that for the Bulacan airport project.

The available supply in our power grid is precarious because it takes forever for a proponent to get approval to put up a power plant. Last I heard, six years for a good size coal power plant. Investors, including some locals, just move on to neighboring countries.

Even with the creation of the PPP Center, proponents decry the non-stop shuffling of papers as NEDA bureaucrats ask for more or the same papers or seek responses to issues that were responded to earlier. The Aboitiz Group has been negotiating to manage Laguindingan airport in Cagayan de Oro and Panglao in Bohol, but is nowhere near completion of an agreement.

It is easy to give up on our country. But for our future generations, we just have to keep on reminding government officials they have duties to perform… as if that matters to them.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @boochanco.