Weak state

Calamity, we now see very clearly, is the offspring of a weak state.

A weak state, in the technical language of political science, is a regime that is porous to vested interests, powerful lobbies and populist constituencies. Its policies are shaped by short-term interests rather than long-term good, by particular benefits rather than the larger welfare.

A weak state governs for the present; not for the future. Eventually its minor failings accumulate into a major tragedy.

In principle, the state should consistently take the commanding heights. It should look far into the future and anticipate the community’s needs way down the road. It should cover vulnerabilities with preemptive action instead of waiting for bad things to happen and scrambling for a response.

A strong state is like a good general who trains his army and conducts his diplomacy so well as to make war unnecessary. A weak state is like a poor general who relies on the extraordinary valor of his men to win a battle from an inferior position.

A strong state requires high quality leadership, the sort that is able to convince constituents that what might be unpopular at the moment is necessary to secure the future. It requires a high-quality bureaucracy that plans for the longer term and enforces policies with neither fear nor favor.

A weak state is transactional. It responds to particularistic political stimulus from specific constituencies. It is vulnerable to political accommodation, compromising the integrity of policies to suit immediate contingencies. It responds to constituencies that are insistently noisy rather than ideas that are fundamentally sound.

Evolving a strong state is not inconsistent with building democracy. The task simply becomes more challenging. In a democracy, governments must not only build consensus, they must also educate the people so that this consensus will be an enlightened one.

It is always easy to build consensus on banal grounds. Everyone will obviously agree to bring down taxes even as the inevitable consequence will be sovereign bankruptcy down the road.

In a democracy, the noisiest voices are often those with the most myopic views. That makes more urgent the need for quality leadership that is capable of convincing the majority that short-term pain is often necessary for long-term gain.

Our agrarian reform program is an example of a policy package resulting from a weak state. It is a program shaped by the short-term demand for people to own small and uneconomical plots of land rather than guided by the need to optimize our agricultural productivity through integrated farming given that arable land is our scarcest resource. In the end, it is a program that condemns us to being a mono-crop economy that daily reproduces the ranks of the rural poor.

Among the major design flaws of the present constitutional order is that it condemns us to a very short three-year electoral cycle. That makes partisan politics frenetic, induces discontinuity in management and shortens the project planning and implementation horizon. Our elective officials will, under a shortened electoral cycle, tend towards small and inconsequential projects rather than large and consequential ones. They will build redundant bus stops rather than undertake the longer task of creating a new highway.

In the deluge that befell the metropolis the other week, we have finally been sensitized to the fact that the national capital region sits on complex and vulnerable topography. It is drained (or used to be drained) by a vulnerable system of waterways weaving from the lake to the bay.

That vulnerable natural drain system has been slowly disabled over decades by local authorities who allowed property developments on floodplains, who looked the other way as creeks were built over or settled in and who failed to enforce rules against clogging sewerage and esteros with trash.

Add corruption to myopia.

Years ago, recognizing the vulnerability of our topography, an environmental clearance certification was required for any construction. Without the benefit of a comprehensive land use plan, however, that requirement has become just another tolling gate for people collecting political rent.

Laguna de Bay needs to be massively dredged. It has silted over the years of abuse. It can no longer hold the volume of water it used to take from the surrounding terrain.

But today, the people who gain much from fish pen operations clogging the lake refuse to take away their fences. By what right they have to be there we do not know. Because the lake is shallower, the surrounding towns will remain flooded. This will be a test of political will.

We have this bizarre arrangement in the national capital region where the local governments are not subordinated to the MMDA. Depending on what politically suits them, they may or may not submit to MMDA policies.

How, tell me, can we have effective governance of this topographically challenged metropolitan area unless we have a unified governance structure? Can the mayors continue to rule like barons in their petty political subdivisions and the whole city safeguarded from future deluges?

The weak state, we see here, is also an offspring of flawed administrative design.