Abolish the RDCs? Or abolish the gov’t?

Last Friday afternoon, I got my schedules mixed up as I had two invitations, one from the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation’s (RAFI) Understanding Choices Forum about the “new normal,” and the other was the 4th Cebu Annual Economic Briefing & Investment Forum which was held at the City Sports Club. I mistakenly thought that the RAFI event was also held at the City Sports… so I ended attending the Economic Briefing hosted by the Cebu Business Club (CBC).

Their main speakers were Secretary Arsenio Balisacan of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA); Dr. Karl Kendrick Chua, senior country economist, Word Bank Philippines; Leonardo Arguelles Jr., president and CEO, UniCapital Securities, Inc., and our own Prof. Fernando Fajardo, USC economics professor and CBC executive director. I can’t put everything that these people said in their respective speeches. But let me just say that Dr. Chua was totally correct that it was time to do serious tax reforms in the Philippines by simplifying it so that there will be more people paying taxes to the government. 

But the question of the hour was presented by Prof. Perry Fajardo when he asked the question to the NEDA Secretary, “Are Regional Development Councils (RDC) still relevant today or should we abolish them?” I would have wanted to participate in the discussion, unfortunately, CBC president Dondi Joseph was asking more questions for himself rather than act like the moderator. So I decided it was going to be a useless discussion, which as we know, won’t help this country move forward.

Yes, we already know what is the problem in this country… yet true to this very unique Filipino trait, we go from forum after forum, after forum, because we Filipinos love to talk. But we are zero in action. This is why it took 14 years of martial rule before the Filipino people woke up to their slumber and realized that the Marcos dictatorship wasn’t helping the Philippine economy improve vis-à-vis our ASEAN neighbors. Indeed, when President Ferdinand Marcos came into power in 1965, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and even Hong Kong looked up to the Philippines. After Marcos was ousted from power, the Philippines became known as the sick man of Asia.

We just celebrated the 28th anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution for the first time in Cebu and outside Metro Manila. Yet many pundits now admit that EDSA was a failure as far as reforms are concerned… to the point that some Netizens are spreading their own gospel that President Marcos was the “Best President the Philippines ever had.” This is because they are now comparing the performance of then President Marcos to the performance of President Aquino, which in my book is a wrong comparison.

Now I’m no fan of P-Noy because his presidential style lives purely on propaganda, while Marcos ruled as a dictator. But allow me to disprove that President Marcos wasn’t the best president we’ve ever had. First a great president must learn to rule and accept criticism for it is in criticism that one can mold his presidency to a better governance. Sadly, President Marcos ruled with a media that was owned by his cronies.

I guess, this is where President Marcos and President Aquino has the same characteristics. They seem to hate the media and in Cebu, SunStar reporter Oscar Pineda was able to ask P-Noy a question about the snail pace or non-existent government help for the victims of Typhoon Yolanda, wherein the President remarked, “To say that no relief goods came seemed absurd. We’re going to Bantayan Island now. Perhaps, I wouldn’t be going to Bantayan if the people are mad at me, isn’t that so?” 

P-Noy apparently does not realize that Filipinos are by nature a polite people and would welcome him because they respect the Office of the President that he represents. But he must be told that Bantayanons are not happy with his government’s lack of support. In fact when he went to Bantayan Island last Tuesday, he had a photo opportunity with donated bancas behind him. Those bancas were donated by private groups or NGOs but nothing from the Office of the President.

So back to the question, “Are RDCs still relevant in today’s times?” As a 20-year member of the private sector in RDC-7, let me say that RDCs are relevant as a sounding board for Malacañang. But if this question has come up, it is only because the Malacañang bureaucracy has become so centralized, they don’t find any need for RDCs anymore. In all honesty, if they want to abolish the RDC, the better part of valor is to abolish the entire structure of government and rebuild a new one, preferably one that is federal so each federal state can chart its own course and destiny. Malaysia is Federal. Why can’t the President learn from the Malaysians?

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