Adhocracy and lap mentality

Plumbline

Adhocracy and lap mentality

By Pastor Apollo Quiboloy

Good news greeted the week President Aquino marked two years in office.

One raft comes courtesy of the Social Weather Stations which made public the result of its second quarter survey.

First is that the GNP—Gutom na Pilipino—is down to 18.4 percent of total number of families from the 23.8 percent recorded in March.

Second, membership in the Tambay Republic has apparently gone down, with the jobless rate plunging to 26.6 percent from 34.4 percent a quarter ago.

Third, 4 percent of families have updated their status to “poor no more,” bringing down the number of self-confessed “mahirap” to 51 percent from 54 percent in the first quarter.

On top of this trifecta of good tidings from the pollster are the low inflation rate of 2.8 percent in June and the one-notch credit rating upgrade by Standard and Poor’s.

On the face of it, this scorecard is already impressive. Palace drumbeaters don’t, however, trust the figures to speak for themselves, so they immediately went to town amplifying these achievements.

But lost in the din of the thumping of the tomtom drums are the numbers which should jolt us into pondering the hard work which needs to be done.

Although unemployment is down, the fact is that close to 11 million Filipinos raring to work cannot land a job.

The “GNP” percentage, when translated to the number of Filipinos, means that 19 million occasionally go on a forced diet.

As to the families who rate themselves poor, their actual number—10.3 million—represents a majority, the pobre millions in this land of many Forbes billionaires.

These are probably the reasons why in spite of the SWS numbers which may have warmed the cockles of the hearts of those in power, they did not send the hearts of the ordinary folks fluttering that the good times are here.

The truth is we have not reached the tipping point. We may be inching our way there but just as one swallow doesn’t make a summer, one quarter of good performance doesn’t mean that we are on a roll.

We hope the slew of positive developments will be sustained and will signal the start of an irreversible trend.

Otherwise, the latest polls would have merely captured the peak of our rollercoaster ride only to slide down to the valley of disconcerting numbers the next time a survey is taken.

But even if the next edition of economic numbers will not be to our liking, we should not despair. There may be corrections, dips and slippages. The important thing is that the overall trend is that of a general improvement.

Although I recognize the value of a survey in periodically gauging performance, my only beef is that it leads those who are being measured to develop a fixation for stop-gap and short-gestation measures calculated to be implemented on a fly so they can be captured in the next polling cycle.

Our truncated electoral calendar has already bred a culture of ­adhocracy. We are governed by men whose planning horizon does not go beyond the 156 weeks (three years) that they are in office.

Because they have a job review (election) every three years, they are forced to resort to gimmickry to bag a contract extension from their bosses (the electorate.)

Out of this imposed myopia is a type of governance which sets the completion timeline for projects at 36 months, in time for the proponent to claim bagging rights when his tenure is about to expire. Like canned sardines, government programs have “best before” labels.

The result is a preference for retail projects and an aversion for big-ticket undertakings. It is bad politics to stand for re-election with uncompleted project hanging over your head.

The rule is that a project must be inaugurated within the term and to deny your successor the privilege of blessing what you groundbroke.

The result is that our leaders lurch from quarter to quarter, election to election. This lap mentality, of the refusal to view the long haul, is probably the reason we are lagging behind in the race for prosperity with our neighbors.

I am making this point to stress the fact that our vision must extend beyond the next quarter or so, in fact, beyond the next elections. We must plot our course in generational terms.

For example, by 2020, our basic education enrolment will reach 35.6 million, 14.1 million more than what we have today. This means that in seven years we must be able to build 352,000 classrooms, the same number of teachers, add 14.1 million chairs and stock up on 70 million books.

I hope the preparation is being done now. Otherwise, when 2020 comes around and it will be bedlam in schools, our leaders will dissect with 20/20 hindsight what went wrong when. They could have used their brilliance in preparing for that predictable future.