EDITORIAL - Name change

What’s in a name?

In a country where corruption is endemic, it can mean an opportunity for making dirty money. The Department of Health should watch out for this as it considers a proposal to change its name to the Department of Health and Wellness.

Doesn’t health include wellness? Pursuing activities that promote wellness contributes to good health. The DOH already has supervision over massage parlors, spas, cosmetic enhancement clinics as well as providers of traditional and alternative medical health care. It should pursue the return of its supervision over e-cigarettes and vapes from the Department of Trade and Industry.

A change of name for an executive department will entail changing signages, letterheads, patches on uniforms and names on a host of office supplies. How much of scarce DOH funds will be spent for this? The DOH doesn’t even have enough funds to meet the massive demand for public health care, or to provide the higher pay that health workers have been seeking for a long time.

Government officials should focus on improving the efficiency of the services they are tasked to deliver instead of looking for ways to waste people’s money. The nation is currently witnessing an internecine battle at the Senate over the expenses for their new building, which one side says has ballooned by more than P10 billion, with P600 million allocated merely for landscaping. And yet the government cannot even afford to build a few kilometers of roads in congested Metro Manila that can be used by motorists without having to pay stiff tolls to private companies.

President Marcos, at the start of his administration, promised “rightsizing” in the bureaucracy. He then proceeded to create a new department to handle the affairs of migrant workers, and is considering the creation of at least two more new departments. It seems that for every intractable problem, the answer is to throw people’s money at it, by creating a new agency. The latest proposal is to create a Department of Peace, Reconciliation and Unity. If the money that will go to the creation and maintenance of that department would be spent for the development of conflict zones, there would be fewer reasons for people to join insurgencies.

Gerrymandering continues, from regions to provinces to barangays, creating more new offices and new positions to be filled with beneficiaries of political patronage and members of political dynasties, all at taxpayers’ expense. Despite the ever-growing bureaucracy, the nation continues to suffer from poor services and chaotic, corrupt governance.

Now, in a department plagued by acute inadequacies in funding, facilities, supplies and manpower, the discussion is over a name change. Don’t government officials have better things to do?