Reducing graft through federalism
Incoming president Rodrigo Duterte recently disclosed that one of his priorities once he gets seated in Malacañang is to restructure the government into a federal one. This is good news. For people who know what a federal government is and what are its advantages over our current unitary system, this is indeed a welcome pronouncement.
Welcome because a federal system involves empowerment of local governments or a cluster of these called states. Such empowerment serves various functions among which are the authority to spend a sizable portion of public money for the state's own operational needs including infrastructure projects.
Under the current system, the head of a regional office (or lower offices) of a national agency gets his marching order from his boss in Manila. What project to pursue and how to go about it are dictated from central offices, a practice which discourages local initiative. But what is worse is that wastage of resources occurs because the gods in Manila do the choosing of contractors (in the case of infrastructure projects) or of the suppliers (in the case of purchases) and you know the reason why.
I have had some experience on this when I served as an education director years ago. At one time a salesman of a big Manila-based company that manufactured plastic armchairs came to my office with an Advice of Allotment for P40 million earmarked for Central Visayas. He had also with him a prepared purchase order with my name on it and a note of endorsement from a top official. His request: That I sign the order at the price stipulated (as determined by Manila office). Of course, I did not sign the order. Not only was the price apparently high, there was no bidding conducted. By refusing to go along with the transaction I knew I deprived my schools with much needed armchairs. But that was better than taking part in a dubious deal for which I could be charged of dishonesty or irregular practice.
In my ten years as education RD, there were other instances when Manila-initiated projects costing several millions of pesos were coursed through my office but which were later withdrawn. The reason: I refused to play ball with project proponents whose motives were obviously more personal than what was good for the country.
These scenarios were indeed indicative of corrupt practices in the government. It happened years ago but I'm sure it's still happening now. And one major cause: Our highly centralized system. On the one hand, you have the elite bureaucrats in Manila who want to make extra money; on the other, you have their middle level subalterns in the provinces and cuties who usually connive with their bosses.
But this will not happen in a federalized system. For one thing, the influence of high officials based in the capital city over their lower officials will be diminished. This will happen because key officials in the local government or states will be armed with adequate authority to function with greater independence and since procurement of goods and services will be localized the costs of these will be much less than those sourced in Manila. Besides transactions done in the field are easy to monitor by concerned citizens and the media, thus irregularities will likely be reduced.
It is naïve, of course, to expect that malpractices in the government will be completely stamped out if the powers of local governments are enhanced. The truth is, it's not only the structure but also the socio-political culture that determines human behavior in a bureaucracy. If that culture gives high premium to ethical behavior, this kind of behavior will prevail. Otherwise the opposite will be the rule of the game. The implication is that with the change in government structure there has to be a parallel change in the socio-political culture.
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