The 21st century mindset

It has been observed that if there is one factor hindering the Philippines from catching up with its dynamic neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, it is the outdated mindset that has remained with us from the last century.

President Aquino has tried to inculcate in the missions of government offices the need for integrity and good governance in the performance of their jobs by focusing on the welfare of their respective clients.

“Customer orientation” has long been the crux in business operations and it is clearly understood that failure to internalize this culture will result in a loss to competition and eventually the replacement of the boss.

There is a new determination for quality execution of plans, conscientious monitoring of progress and achievement of deliverables. All these can only be done in coordination with other government units, which implies that a “conductor” has to be in place.

However, this approach has not caught fire yet, perhaps due to the historical silo mentality which prevents outsiders of an office from moving into the turf of others.

Overlapping “legal mandates,” bureaucratic terrain, desire for personal glory/fame dampen the enthusiasm of senior officials to pursue out-of-box modes in addressing strategic challenges such as the cargo congestion in the ports resulting in traffic overload in Manila—the horrendous spectacle of the city government and the port authority acting as two stubborn silos made us the laughing stock in the region to the delight of competing countries. Fortunately, Secretary Rene Almendras stepped in to act as the “conductor” of several parties to work as a team. They found innovative solutions in handling empty containers from causing bottlenecks of major logistical proportions.

The use of technology and innovation is not the norm due to the aforementioned turf concerns giving rise to lethargy. The problem of deforestation and illegal fishing practices continue, but has the DENR considered the various technology-led proposals from the business sector, such as the use of Google Maps and Waze?

Regional planning and execution with active participation of LGUs used to be coordinated by a Cabinet secretary in charge of the region (the CORD approach). In this arrangement, greater focus to national strategy prioritization can be achieved, and leaders from the LGUs (called “sparkplugs” before) can serve as models for the transformation of the region, in general.

Hence, each Cabinet member, in addition to his functional role, will be a regional manager on behalf of the President.

This will deter local politicians from initiating infrastructure projects in the region that are not of national import, and which serve only their parochial interests. These vanity projects were reported before by the National Competitiveness Council, but have fallen on deaf ears. Infrastructure and Policy Developments must follow National Strategy to make optimum use of our assets.

There are other dysfunctionalities, such as the slow issuance of car plates and drivers licenses by the Land Transportation Office (LTO), which other countries find hard to understand.

The Philippines and its firms/entrepreneurs are supposed to be part of the global supply chain if we could only discard the protectionist mentality and be as good as our dynamic neighbors in terms of logistics costs, timeliness and distribution breadth.

Consider the big retailers in the top Asean countries and include some of the best global players. They bring the latest marketing and sourcing technologies to benefit local customers while promoting local products to their network of subsidiaries and their home countries as reliable components of their product supply chains.

One can also observe in the above countries that there are some top global shipping companies together with local shipping lines who serve their domestic water transport needs which give them considerable advantage in logistics costs and broader sourcing, both from their central regions and their islands.

So far, we have made good progress in cutting corruption, and improving the justice system, among others.

If the above outdated practices and mentality are upgraded to the 21st century norm, our productive economy and employment figures will bounce to the top spot in the region.

Inclusive growth will eventually be a reality.

With the greater use of innovative approaches via technology and clever determination to work as members of a symphony orchestra playing from the same strategy sheet under the baton of our conductor, the Filipinos will gain the respect of the world.

Welcome to the 21st century mindset.

(The author is chair of MAP National Competitiveness committee and chair of CIBI Information Inc. He previously served as secretary of the Department of Trade and Industry. Feedback at <[email protected]> and <[email protected] >. For previous articles, please visit <map.org.ph>)