Sexy

There are those who would want to inflate a scandal into a cataclysm. That is as much driven by narrow self-interest as the scandal itself.

This whole mess about the aborted NBN deal can either take a destructive or constructive turn. That, I suppose, is the decision every citizen must make at this moment of tension and confusion.

We can deal with this scandal in the usual destructive way. Raise a howl, fuel public cynicism, throw a tantrum and cause some heads to roll. And then move on from the ruins without building our institutions and without repairing our civic culture.

There will never be a shortage in the supply of motives for taking this whole thing down the destructive path. There are ideological groups totally addicted to the imagination of a permanent crisis gripping our society. They may be relied upon to do their usual thing: fire up hate, step up the shrillness in the streets and angle for position when things start breaking down.

And then there are the ambitions of petty politicians, cramped by the present power arrangement. They need turmoil to loosen things up, push their rivals to their heels and open opportunities for their own advancement. On their flanks are those with a simplistic notion of how our society might progress: raze institutions and take control our nation’s destiny through the barrel of a gun.

There is never a lack of constituency for political carnivals: those who nurse a permanent disdain for every form of rule and every style of leadership; those who are overcome by a consuming dislike for certain personalities on the edifice; those who nurse the destructive belief that the only way to prevent government from robbing us is to prevent government from being workable in every way.

And then there is a way for all the energies aroused by a scandal to be harnessed for remedial gains: for improving on our procedures, for reinforcing our institutions, for renovating governance and for invigorating our civic culture.

In the case of the NBN controversy, there is much to talk about that will yield lasting value for our community. But these matters are simply not being talked about, either because they are not understood by those who simply want to grandstand or because the media might not find these issues sexy enough to cover.

Is the public procurement system really, as Jun Lozada described it, completely “dysfunctional”? Is it supplier-driven rather than firmly controlled by priorities clearly defined by policy?

If that is so, what legislative or policy remedies might be available? What innovation in procedures could be done, so that greed is not only moderated but discouraged?

Is the system by which decisions are taken regarding ODA-funded projects adequate? Or is it a system vulnerable to power-brokering, as Jun Lozada’s version of events suggests?

When the system for project approval and execution is vulnerable, power-brokering happens and corruption creeps in. Some are simply smarter than others. The fundamental reason for improving governance and making public transactions both contestable and transparent is precisely that some are infinitely smarter than others and that fact should be mitigated by proper procedures.

If that is so, what legislative or policy remedies could be devised to correct the present system for channeling ODA to productive enterprises?

In my naive, academic mind, I imagine these should be the top concerns of the senators holding marathon hearings on the NBN controversy. If these are the top concerns in their minds, that doesn’t show in the political carnival going on.

Instead, it seems, the senators want to implicate as many people as possible, find every possibility to keep the controversy (and the media coverage) going and produce as much intrigue as humanly imaginable to provide juice for the melodrama. The unassailable excuse for doing so is to uncover the “truth”.

That discourse does not quite jive with my training as a social scientist: which is to extract the truth from the facts. The “truth” in the case of inquiries in aid of legislation ought to be the legislative remedies to an apparent dysfunction. The “truth” that the politicians sitting in that inquiry seem to search for is one sufficiently explosive as to cause a political malfunction.

To put it baldly: the institutional “truth” that an inquiry in aid of legislation ought to be concerned about is simply not sexy enough. Nobody wants to watch a policy debate in this parts.

If there is no audience for that sort of discourse, then it will not be covered by commercial media. If it is not covered by media, there will be no grandstanding gains.

What grabs audience share is high drama. The saga of persecuted men fighting the high and mighty. The suspense of “kidnappings” and the sight of grown men crying under the terrible pressures made to bear upon them.

This is the narrative the media wants. It is the same narrative that the agitators need. It is the narrative that fires up political passion and drives people to the streets.

Therefore it is the narrative that the politicians provide especially those with much to gain from tumultuous times. Because this is the narrative that grabs audience share and improves television ratings.

Although this might not be the narrative we need to build a more functional future for our country. What we need is the narrative of reform: relentless, precise, irreversible and effective.