Managing public governance deficit
(Part I)
The coronavirus has created a synergy between macroeconomics and epidemiology which explains and predicts infection dynamics and public health containment strategies. This is why the IMF has categorized the pandemic as a crisis like no other.
Only now, the WHO declared that lockdowns are justified only to buy “time to reorganize, regroup, rebalance... resources (and) protect (exhausted) health workers... but by and large, we’d rather not do it.” In this context, we wasted time. We have very little epidemiological curve flattening. We continue to wait for, and depend on, a vaccine to become available.
In the meantime, there is an increasing deficit in public governance. More policy shortcomings could easily translate into more lockdowns and a deeper recession.
Funding is indispensable, to say the least. Last week, oblivious to the urgency, the House suspended its plenary session. Instead a “small committee” will study the budget. Some suspect that the move was intended to break the so-called gentleman’s agreement and prevent the transition of power in Congress.
This broadsheet reported that the intramural in Congress, “looms during four-day House special session.” The Philippine Daily Inquirer’s headline warned, “a reenacted budget can cripple COVID response.”
Monday afternoon, the Velasco camp convened a pre-session meeting. Based on preliminary reports, Velasco would be voted the new speaker once the speakership is declared vacant and an election of a new speaker is called for. Unless this process is consummated quickly, politicking — not politics — will run over Congress and the 2021 budget may likely be derailed.
This is how public governance deficit is incurred. Among others, it’s a numbers game.
In the proposed 2021 budget, we see some districts benefitting from tens of billions of pesos worth of infra projects. On the other hand, other areas of the archipelago would hardly see their infra allocation reach the one-billion mark.
While different areas have different markers for infra requirements, we observe that areas getting the bigger slice of pork are already on their way to becoming business centers. How can uneven development in the Philippines be addressed by this budget practice?
When real needs are not covered in the annual allocation, we summon the private sector to build public goods like roads, bridges, tollways, airports and seaports via Public-Private Partnerships.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this. But the practice breeds negligence. Better and more extensive rail travel becomes possible only when the private sector is engaged. This is a safety valve for bad governance because a third party is willing to meet the deficit.
What makes matters worse is double-counting. Time and time again, Senator Ping Lacson, the pork hunter, has pointed out similar items for funding by two departments. He called out the inclusion of more than R8 billion for various DND infra programs also listed under the DPWH budget. With this, it is also possible, and Congress should continue to investigate, if construction and improvement of school buildings and classrooms appear in both the DepEd and the DPWH budgets.
It is worrisome that next year, we might have a reenacted budget. But what is more concerning is if the new budget to be passed in the next few days should need to be rationalized and realigned to be meaningful.
At any rate, we hope to see more allocations for health and the fight against the pandemic; for education and the need to provide faster Internet connectivity for our students and teachers; for agricultural productivity; for trade facilitation and assistance to MSMEs and the export sector; and for infra and power. Digital transformation is not possible when power is unstable and not commonly available and when Internet speed is snailpaced, or when digital players do not have the equipment to participate and leverage on cutting-edge technology. (To be continued)