Government as private business

Government as private business
(Herman Tiu Laurel / DieHard III / The Daily Tribune / 09-08-2014 MON)

When politicians and businessmen make the same call to "run government
like a business," we are reminded of this one caveat from one of the
greatest reformers in history: Former US President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt, who saved the United States of America from the Great
Depression, said of those who bankrupted his country, "They had begun
to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to
their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is
just as dangerous as Government by organized mob."

Thus, when a major Philippine political leader calls the top corporate
money bag of foreign and local finance capital as his "bossing,"
Filipinos really have to worry.

The "bossing" quote accompanied an assertion by the politician that he
runs his constituency "like a business enterprise (similar to his
bossing's) whose successes in administration and public service he
wanted to replicate in the national government," according to one
report.

Clearly, the politician also wants to replicate the record of a
previous Malacañang tenant, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, whose then
economic adviser (now Albay governor) Joey Salceda boasted as having
the "most pro-business" government, with the top 1000 corporations
earning almost P4 trillion" (excluding unreported incomes) from 2001
to 2010. Of course, what Salceda left out was that the official
hunger rate upped from 11.4 percent in 2000 to 20.3 percent in 2010.

Even as current Palace occupant BS Aquino likes to repeat that his
"bossings" are the people, few believe that claim--especially so when
it comes to the vast sea and growing tsunami of the poor in this
country.

Despite the much ballyhooed GDP growth, the country remains faced with
growing joblessness in the jobless economic growth model (despite
Manila Times' Ben Kritz finally swallowing the skewed definition of
"employed" that includes garland vendors and the like); and the
reality of Gross Domestic Pain increasing as profits of
foreign-controlled and domestic Big Business expand through the
highest rates in Asia in corporate-controlled public utilities, such
as power, water, telecoms, fossil energy, transportation, ad nausea.

We debated this issue at our small Sunday market coffee clique, whose
other members include two World Bank consultants, one former Ayala
executive, and one engineer of a multinational oil company. They were
ranged against my Franklin Delano Roosevelt quip and my view that
government should not be run like a business and that it should
restrain the avarice, especially of Big Business. I have to qualify
that because, as I told the group, the business model is appropriate
for small, medium, and even large-scale businesses only when these do
not deal with inelastic demand commodities, services, and sectors
imbued with basic public interests.

They argued that the private business model is more efficient. But
where's the proof when it comes to governance? Which society is
better run for its people today--China, Vietnam, and Singapore (all
late economic tigers compared to 1950s Philippines) or the
Philippines? Or compare the US today with China.

I asked the World Bank consultant about Indonesia. Is it dominated by
private business or the state? He had to admit that Indonesia is a
state-run society and is better than the Philippines. We cited
examples in the Philippines, like the MRT, which is privately owned
with all sorts of problems, in contrast to the LRT run by government
since Marcos' time, which had been comparatively trouble free.

The Philippines today is actually being run exactly like a
business--entirely for profit. The general rule is that politicians
run it for profit too--for themselves, their business "bossings," and
foreign capitalists controlling the major Filipino companies through
the backdoor.

I highlighted the deterioration with policy retrogressions, such as
the removal of the "political ads ban" by Sen. Edgardo Angara in the
early 2000s after Edsa II, which restored the primacy of political
funding from the oligarchs, the profits of their media corporate
giants, and the money power of the two. There is also the complete
non-compliance by the tri-media owned by the oligarchs to any media
control limitations.

The struggle for democracy of the people against these money powers
stretches back centuries. I'll go as far back only to the 18th
Century when the US Constitution was drafted by Thomas Jefferson, who
said, "I hope we shall take warning from the example of England and
crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which
dare already to challenge our Government to trial, and bid defiance to
the laws of our country."

The US today has forgotten Jefferson's warning; and the Ferguson,
Missouri riots are a reminder.

In the Philippines, top business auditor (and US army sergeant)
Washington Sycip already has his sights set on Little Miss Poe-ppet
(see the September 3 Inquirer headline).

We need leadership that is sworn to defend and protect the State and the People.

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