Part of the game

We’ve written previously on the South East Asian Games (SEAG), a competition steeped in history and one for which the honor of hosting allows us to showcase our best selves to the world. Organizing events of this magnitude requires enormous foresight, fortitude and heroic capacities for pain. The pressure will be immense: traffic, privacy, safety/security issues, among others, not to mention simply being organized at all. But the payoffs could be immeasurable. In the pot, we find the chips for prestige and good ASEAN citizenship.

Heroic is how we got here in the first place. We volunteered when Brunei begged off.

The whys and wherefores. No one entertains the illusion that our hosting of the Games was intended with long term positive financial impacts in mind. Most mega sport events end up in deficits when economic analysis is used as the metric of success.  In non economic terms, however, they’re inevitably unforgettable experiences for everyone.

Commercially, its not always the Nation that ends up benefitted. It’s actually the host cities that reap the rewards from upgrades of existing infrastructure to the opportunity at elevating the community. At this SEAG, it’s the New Clark City and its greener identity that is primary recipient of the positive changes catalyzed by preparations.

As to social impacts, we normally compute costs together with benefits. The expectation of course was elevated pride, identity, cohesion, image. But, so far, the opposite has prevailed.

From event to crisis management. If events management were among the sports to be disputed, there is no way we’re getting a podium finish. Using the government’s own language, there were quite a bit of missteps here.

Media, as they are wired to, will dwell on the missteps. At this high profile level and given the international complexion, the government’s assumption of hosting duties should really be open to scrutiny, if only to guarantee readiness.

Told to report on the good, media will do so. For as long as there is good to report on. Do good and it drowns out the negatives. Already we are hearing about the private sector stepping up, e.g. the CERES buses for the visiting teams. Our Tourism Secretary, the reliable Berna Romulo Puyat has been activated and has rallied troops. The Clark facilities appear to be world class. There is praise from delegates who did not encounter unfortunate fumbles.

PHISGOC has had to field the brickbats that come with the natural negativity bias. This is part of the game for anyone on top of preparations. The Speaker who chairs has faced down hostile challenges in the past. We should soon be seeing the fruits of the hard work his committee has put in. Deputy Speaker Joey Salceda has a choicer picture: too much nega. The critics will eat their words, just you wait and see.

Today, we formally open the SEAG. We’re putting on a show that should provide us with a fresh opportunity to shine. After all the ambient noise, let us focus on the games. Ultimately, the competition is what its all about.

From delegates to delegation. The Administrative state was the inevitable result of modernization. We are taught in basic courses on the Constitution, since grade school, that governmental power is apportioned among the three branches: the Legislative, Executive and Judicial. Realistically, though, this paradigm worked only for communities of a manageable size. When communities became cities and cities began to make up countries, the demands of the times required even more from this tripartite formulation.

Hence, the creation by Congress of administrative agencies to which they delegated (a) rule making and (b) adjudicative powers, in concert with their own mandates to (c) implement the law. From separation of powers, we went to integration of powers. The legalities? That’s another long story. Should be easy to absorb, though, in a 3-in-1 culture like ours.

Congress didn’t have the time to bother with details like the transportation routes of jeepney franchises or the rates to be charged by distribution utilities. The President couldn’t possibly and singlehandedly see to the execution of every policy from the Legislature. And how unwieldy would it be to have every conceivable controversy decided by the Courts?

The bureaucracy created was envisioned to have dedicated focus on the evolving matters within their respective spheres. As regulators, they were the experts on the increasingly technological concerns by-product of the march to progress. From a governance standpoint, the growth of bureaucracy was fueled by considerations of economy, effectivity and efficiency.

Post enactment scrutiny. We revisit these fundamentals in the wake of the Senate’s efforts to second guess one such body created by law, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In the exercise of its regulatory function, the FDA determined that family planning aids progestin sub-dermal implants (PSIs), specifically Implanon and Implanon NXT, are non-abortifacient. Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III is proposing to halt the funding for the purchase of these PSIs in what would seem to be a substitution of his judgment for that of the FDA.

At first blush, it would appear that the Senate President is merely exercising legislative oversight or that auxiliary power to see to it that legislation, once issued, is faithfully executed. Contentious souls, however, are seeing impermissible involvement by a legislator in a matter which Congress has already delegated to the expert executive agency or the preemption of the Courts on an issue properly disposable by judicial intervention. How is this consistent with separation of powers doctrine?

But the Senate President has done this in the context of an appropriations committee hearing. This is the Senate proposing to an amenable lower House the temporary year to year abeyance of any purchase of the questioned implants (one year is the duration of the General Appropriations Act). They would, thus, be acting through a law. And it is one of the accepted guises in which Congress exercises post enactment oversight against executive determinations they disagree with.