What Noynoy must know

I met a foreigner retiree who used to work with the United Nations (UN) for 20 years or so.  He would document real life stories from nation to nation of cultures, subcultures, lifestyles, and all other untold crimes of the underworld - son murdering his father on the spot, politicians on drugs and drug dealings, smuggling, child trafficking - you name it he's lensed it.

Of the stories he shared to me was about the daily plight of beggars in the streets of Manila and the organizations that are actually behind its modus.

We all know that the beggars are linked to a group of mafias.  This is an old story and this is not a myth.  What we don't know is that this group is somehow linked to the Congress. And he filmed this story too.

His job was to send documentaries to the UN.  The org would then endorse it back to our administration.  This is in the hope that the story would awaken the eyes of our leaders. This is in the hope that the documentaries could challenge the status quo.  This is in the hope that it could evoke a change in the system.

Nothing happened.

And so the UN will have to wait until the next administration will grant their request.  If nothing still happens then they will have to wait for the next again.  And so the wait goes on.

I wonder if Noynoy knows about this.  If he did already, then he knows where to start sweeping.  Otherwise, his promise of eradicating poverty and corruption was probably just for the show.

By the way colorful designer clothes at the SONA was impressive.

Where have all our taxes gone?

Recently, I was invited to a focus group discussion initiated by the Asian Institute of Management (AIM). It was a forum that opened lids on issues of corruption.  Particularly on how businessmen manage to survive through their daily dealings that apparently impact their operations.

Those who know me knows that I'm not so much interested in talks about politics.  But I thought I'd share this.  I hope it could lead to something better.

The latest statistics on the cost of corruption according to AIM's research revealed an estimated 20% of the Philippine budget that is lost to corruption every year.

This translates to the Philippines a high probable loss PhP 308.2 billion for the entire year or PhP 843 million each day.  It's a lot of money and this is from a 2010 budget set at PhP 1.4 trillion this year.  You can imagine how much money was lost in the past years.

But what could this huge amount of cash tell us?

It could've sheltered 3.6B families at 40sqm per house. It could've hired 1.6M teachers to public schools. It could've built 598 classrooms, or 102km farm-to-market roads, or 266K barangay health centers.

Tell me what you think about this.

Just let me rant please?

I used to complain a lot about a lot of things a lot of times. Sam knows this. But lately, for the past couple of years, my tolerance improved.

My patience stretches longer these days. Long enough to merit a significant magnitude for space. Wide enough for me to better grasp a sound perspective over issues and concerns, leading me to conclude with bigger love over logic and petty crimes.

De minimis obligations that one can still live happily without.

Most often, my complaints are about services rendered by employees in the government, their unmindful attitude, in appropriate perception of their roles and responsibilities.

Public service.

Isn't this what they are employed for? Voted for? Trusted for? Check this out:

Case #1. After getting my SSS ID card, I discovered that my name was mispelled. So I went to the HR department for assistance, showed a strip of paper from an application form as evidence of a clearly spelled name - one alphabet per box provided. After a couple of weeks, I was advised to furnish a birth certificate from the City Health to ascertain that I am who I am and that my name is spelled as how I wanted it to be spelled.

WTF!

Case #2. For months now, my parents' pension was delayed and therefore are having financial shortage. The GSIS office employee admitted that the documents got misplaced. So they had to file again.

WTF!

Case #3. So I renewed my driver's license a week before my birthday. LTO's records revealed of a pending violation with the MMDA (I do remember this violation but I thought our ex-band manager took care of that - that's another story). I was advised to resolve this with MMDA first so they can proceed with my renewal. How on earth can't they not process this from Cebu? How? At this age of computers? What's worse is that that violation was supposed to be 4 years ago but their records had only been updated in August 2008.

WTF!

No wonder we remain a developing country. We probably deserve that tag. But I don't want it and I don't believe we do deserve it.

Do you?

The services of our government offices will probably never change unless you start teaching good values at home today. To your children. To your friends. Siblings. What have you.

One step at a time.

It's not important that we don't get to live to savor the positively full changes that you probably started for our community in our community. What is more important to note is that change can start now if you decide to... through you and within you.

Ah... I still have my patience with me. And thank you for letting me rant.