Why bad rules have to be changed

In a recent column I gave color coding ban on cars as an example of how inertia prevents us from changing a rule that has outlived its usefulness. I write hoping that someone somewhere who has the power and authority will reconsider the rule and ultimately have it revoked. But on second thought that may just be another example of inertia, a way of thinking and doing things known to be ineffective yet pursued for its own sake.

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You see, I am uncertain about the effectivity of an article as a tool for having useless rules changed. There are other factors to consider and it is these that I want to master to be able to convey through an article just what is involved in promoting active citizenry. Revoking a useless rule is one way of asserting that citizenship.

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Consider the elements of this enterprise. There’s the rule, the totem pole of officialdom, all having a say on the rule, the department or authority which is technically in charge of the rule, and most importantly, the public at large divided among those who are for keeping the rule and those who are against the rule, those who are benefited by it and those who are disadvantaged by it. This is the obvious maze through which even the most dedicated campaigner for its abolition must maneuver to get to the levers of government machinery. Does it work? Does it really pay to be a conscientious citizen? Or does government respond to a different pressure about which conscientious citizens do not count?

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Unless they threaten civic disruption, or revolution which seems to me disproportionate to the cause of revoking a traffic rule. With single car owners as the most disadvantaged in the matter of this continuing ineffective rule I am not optimistic that they can put together a sufficient lobby to revoke the color coding ban. Single car owners tend to be from apathetic lower to middle class who shy away from public campaigns. They are too busy earning a living even if you tell them this is precisely why they should campaign against car coding to enable them to marshal their one and only resource for mobility. An assiduous statistician could come up with the numbers on loss of business, incentive etc. because of the rule but I doubt if this will move this group either.

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Here is what a conscientious reader who prefers to be anonymous wrote with regard to that column on color coding ban and inertia:

"You are right that color coding does not ease traffic. The World Bank studied a similar scheme in Mexico and found that people simply bought two cars instead of one. Traffic did not improve.

The inertia also comes from unintended effects. The color code has raised the demand for cars and parking space. Thus, the car industry and real estate sector benefit from the code, and would resist its demise, as would the neighborhood cops whose meager incomes have risen. So do children in families who see ways of using the second car!

But why is there inertia in public life? By now, economists recognize that certain goods, known as public goods, are not produced by the market. Such goods include infrastructure, rules of the road (peace and order, laws), and national defense. There is no point to a private individual building a road that benefits all, when he gets only a tiny fraction of the benefit. Such inertia often results in acceptance of a bad rule, such as the color code. There must also be many other bad laws, which ought to be repealed but remain in force.

The moral of this story is that public-good inertia is not exclusively Filipino, and that overcoming inertia is possible. Public clamor can work. But we need first to see the perverse incentives and then find the goodwill to eliminate them.

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Well said. So the question comes down to political will because "perverse incentives" sometimes mean confronting more powerful lobbies than the "good of an apathetic public" and the "goodwill to eliminate them" is easier said than done. We are back to square one.

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If I may venture a homespun solution: I dream of a leader who sees the ineffectivity of the rule and goes directly to the bureaucrats in charge to have it revoked. Done. That public clamor should be necessary in so obvious a bad rule as color coding is itself an indication of poor management and a flawed system. Why do we have to clamor before we can change bad rules quickly? That is what we pay government officials for in a democracy – to manage the country for the greater good of the greatest number. If we do not have a mechanism through which useless rules can be reviewed and changed quickly, the country is severely hampered from competing with countries with greater flexibility. That means most of the countries in the region.

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This brings me to my original point for citing inertia and the color coding ban in the first place: the matter of changing the 1987 Constitution. Although there are a good number of Filipinos who know that the 1987 Constitution needs to be changed to cope with the times there are still those who would not support any change or who speak of change only in ten years’ time. Why?

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Are Filipinos so devoted to the 1987 Constitution that they cannot summon the will to change what has obviously become a liability to moving the nation forward? Or are there perverse incentives to keep it in force even if we are heading for disaster with the same Constitution come the elections of 2004. I refer to the multiparty system without a run-off election when the election of a minority president is almost certain unless we amend the Constitution.

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It is well known that the electoral provisions in the 1987 Constitution were in anticipation of a parliamentary form of government. Unfortunately a parliament was voted out with only one vote so we have had to struggle with the odd creature of a body of rules essentially for parliament in a presidential system. A lesson could be learned in the recent French elections. Without a run-off election, the French would have had a political disaster with far-reaching implications for the rest of the world.

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As for us, we commit political suicide if we pursue with the 2004 elections without amending the Constitution. I do not believe it is a choice between amendment or revision with a time frame of ten years. Both are legitimate and pressing concerns. But do we hear any concern or anxiety on what the election of a minority president in 2004 yet again would bring us? What has happened to Senator Ramon Magsaysay Jr.’s suggestion of a constitutional amendment addressing this looming problem? We have not learned from the lessons of 1998. As for the goodwill to eliminate the "perverse incentives" of the 1987 Constitution, disastrous results from the 2004 presidential elections could leave us without any goodwill. It may be too late.

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