Efficiency

SINGAPORE – A Manila-based foreigner working for his government told me last week that his Filipina office assistant earned more than our Cabinet members, and he himself was paid much more than the president of the Philippines. And considering the problems usually piled high on the plate of any Philippine chief executive, the expat said he wouldn’t trade places with President Aquino.

I was reminded of the conversation upon arriving in this city-state the other day on my way to New Zealand. Singapore has the world’s highest paid president, and the tiny country’s civil servants are also among the best paid.

Singaporeans explain that they need to make government salaries competitive with those in the private sector if they want quality public service. It’s not easy to buy competence at bargain basement prices. High pay can also discourage corruption and requests for “facilitation fees” to hurdle red tape.

For Singapore, the approach seems to have worked. Combined with the premium placed by the city-state on providing quality education, Singapore has consistently ranked high, if not No. 1, in all international surveys on good governance. It’s no coincidence that the city-state also ranks at the top or near the top of surveys on ease of doing business, national competitiveness and the quality of the bureaucracy.

Many officials in the Singapore government have post-graduate degrees and years of skills training as they rise through the ranks in their fields of expertise. Appointing someone lacking the credentials to high office can trigger a public uproar.

The high pay has its critics. Well paid employees, however, tend to be more productive and easier to turn into a professional force that delivers quality service.

In our case, we see quantity rather than quality. Maybe the idea is job generation in government, but the result is a bloated bureaucracy, with public funds financing redundancy and inefficiency. With every layer of red tape, there’s someone asking for a facilitation fee. Political patronage no doubt contributes to this; a job in government even for the unqualified, lazy and incompetent is treated as a reward for political support.

The Philippines continues to rank low in surveys on ease of doing business. This is surely one of the reasons why, despite rosy macroeconomic figures, we still lag behind most of our neighbors in attracting foreign direct investment and creating jobs.

Good government is not only clean government, it is also efficient government. A common observation of visitors in Singapore is that everything works. In the Philippines, unfortunately, the opposite is often true.

* * * Good pay and high education give a civil servant self-respect. This is the kind of state worker who understands the wisdom of applying the law equally, without giving anyone VIP treatment or exemption.

Citizens with good education and decent pay also demand better service from their government, promoting accountability and efficient governance. They know the value of strengthening institutions and leveling the playing field.

Singapore works because the rule of law prevails and the justice system works. No rule is too minor to enforce; you can actually get fined for littering or jaywalking.

A younger generation is growing up demanding more from Singapore’s well-ordered society. There are complaints about steep housing prices and hefty contributions to a retirement fund. But the rule of law and national discipline that brought Singapore to its status as an advanced economy are unlikely to be reversed.

Those who consider Singaporean culture too rigid, unexciting and lacking spontaneity can turn to other countries that have managed to rise dramatically from the ashes of wars and social unrest. These advanced economies that also score high on happiness, freedom and quality of life indicators also have the strengths of Singapore – the rule of law, a professional and wellpaid bureaucracy, quality education and public health care, and generally inclusive growth.

* * * New Zealand is one such state. The country that is dwarfed by its friendly neighbor to the north competes with Singapore, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries for the top spot in studies on human development indicators, transparency, competitiveness, ease of doing business and the happiness index. Some of the world’s most livable cities are in New Zealand.

These countries where things work attract our workers, who often return to the Philippines only upon reaching retirement age. Many foreigners have told me that Filipino workers do very well when immersed in the right environment.

Last Saturday at the official residence here of Bernadette Cavanagh, New Zealand high commissioner to Singapore, I met the residence cook of 14 years, Nerissa from Cotabato, who whipped up an excellent NZ buffet dinner for 30 that was capped with pavlova and a serving of mint-laced kiwi fruit. Nerissa has been in this city-state for 20 years. The household supervisor, Yoly from Manila, has been in Singapore for 21 years, 12 of them at the Kiwi residence.

Filipinos are also a growing presence in New Zealand. Cavanagh said Southeast Asian states account for one in 50 people in her country, with half of them Filipinos. Pinoys now number about 40,000 in New Zealand, many of them working in the country’s top industry, dairy.

In my last visit to New Zealand, Pinoys I interviewed in dairy farms told me they went there because of the pay that they could never hope to earn doing the same work in our country. They also like the education and health benefits, plus an environment where, as in Singapore, everything works.

The much-vaunted Kiwi efficiency stumbled in coping with the earthquakes that devastated Christchurch. But that was a rare disaster and the country is now working on earthquake resilience.

There is also no turning back on New Zealand’s strengths. Cavanagh reminded our group from Southeast Asia to make sure we would not be bringing food through New Zealand Customs. Even forgetting that an orange had been tucked into a carry-on bag, she said, would mean a fine of NZ$400. “There’s no way it can be waived,” Cavanagh told us. If we want a strong republic, that kind of attitude must become ingrained in our culture.