Comparing lemons and kalamansi

What gives you a more sour face: A Lemon or a Kalamansi?

What differentiates Gloria Arroyo and Noynoy Aquino that would help explain why one president did not have major port congestion and serious traffic jams as bad as the current president does? Once again comparisons are being made between the P-Noy Misadministration and Aleng Gloria and the forty thieves. They may not like it but a number of Gloria Arroyo bashers are conceding that things were never as bad during the time of PGMA as they are now under P-Noy. A small group on Facebook even posted a good looking photo of former MMDA Chairman Bayani Fernando and suggesting an on-line petition to give the guy his old job back.

Having to work at night due to a tight schedule, I have the luxury to mentally figure out why indeed is the P-Noy Misadministration getting all tangled up at the port and on the roads unlike the Arroyo administration. The bottom line is what we call a choice between two evils as well as a difference in objective.

As far as the Port of Manila and the Bureau of Customs are concerned, it was public knowledge that under the Arroyo administration, the POM-BOC was classified as an “Open City” where the law and tariffs were as flexible as the choice of fixers. Back then shippers, brokers, truckers and enforcers worked effortlessly under what could be called the principle of honor among thieves. The first rule was no drugs, no terrorist implements, or shipments of an alarming nature such as extremely valuable smuggled goods.

Then they operated on a pre-determined schedule of payments per container, per box, per transaction system. Rarely would any of the goods have to be opened or inspected except for “show and tell” purposes such as the media or some government outsider visiting the port. The premise was that if there were any red flags, Customs and shipping authorities from abroad will most likely inform Philippine officials who in turn would let their dogs out.

This “Express Lane” system under the Arroyo administration like the DAP and PDAP has long been in existence not only for corrupt purposes but also because the players knew all too well that they did not have enough space to set down every container and box for inspection. At best they could do random inspection but take shippers at their word.  The down side to the system I am told was that the Philippine government took in only about 40% of the collections, while the rest went to the players every Friday. The upside was there was never any port congestion.

All that has clearly changed under the P-Noy administration where inspections were done, documents demanded, and full payments required. The Express Lane system came to a halt and word soon got out that even Balikbayan boxes, which was everybody’s favorite mode of sending personal effects were now being sifted box by box and being charged based on content value and not per box. Aside from opening containers and boxes, the Customs now demand that shippers present or provide all the necessary permits and documentations as required by related agencies of government. This of course caused a huge hiccup among importers in terms of processing work and costs. The resulting delays eventually led to many unclaimed goods pending on the ground.

But as I pointed out earlier, the Port of Manila does not have the facilities and area to conduct such a massive inspection of each and every container and box.  In addition, the poor people at the Bureau of Customs are so understaffed, internally challenged with integrity issues and swamped by the volume of work and documentation that it is close to impossible to operate and achieve the idealistic goals of P-Noy. To make matters worse, there is so much “job security” under the P-Noy administration that even the most idiotic of politically appointed managers have no fear of losing their jobs for cause or incompetence. So it goes that no one from the PPA is being called to Malacañang to face the wrath of P-Noy the way Gloria regularly gave incompetents a taste of her ire. 

From what I remember talking with Arroyo officials, PGMA never liked traffic, had no tolerance for traffic and expected her people to wave their magic wands to get rid of traffic. Traffic was bad for her popularity. As a result the operating principle under PGMA and Bayani Fernando was to make sure the traffic was flowing FIRST and foremost. Arrests and issuing traffic tickets was only secondary and generally given out at non-peak hours. If local governments even became a nuisance or threw their weight around, BF would simply bring it to GMA’s attention and she would deal with them. Clearly, BF had the president’s ear when it came to traffic to the point that GMA even sent BF to deal with the SLEX traffic during the Skyway construction even though it was the private sector and DPWH who were responsible.

Under P-Noy, my impression is that he is not as “obsessed” about the hassle and impact of traffic on people’s lives perfectly happy keeping himself busy while stuck in traffic. On the other hand, it is possible that P-Noy does not spend as much time moving around as GMA did and does a lot of his work from Malacañang or out of Metro Manila. What I do know is that at the present time there is more effort placed on arresting traffic offenders, raising fines, and conducting checkpoints for various reasons by different types of “law enforcers.” All this has contributed to creating artificial choke points and traffic jams both big and small.

At the end of the day, I surmise that the difference between the two presidents as managers is that GMA was the Boss, dealt with her managers full on and demanded a specific standard of output and excellence. P-Noy on the other hand points to a faceless crowd as the Boss, depends and trusts too much on his managers and prioritizes proximity and loyalty over excellence and delivery. The worst thing that the P-Noy Misadministration does is to blame others and create even more enemies.

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