Sen. Mar Roxas Speech

Speech of Senator MAR Roxas
AIM Alumni Association Induction Ceremonies
6 June 2006
AIM Conference Center

[Greetings]

Thank you for the honor and the opportunity to come
before you on this occasion, the turnover of the
leadership of your alumni association.
I see so many friends and familiar faces in the
audience that this gathering for me is somewhat of a
homecoming as well: not so much in terms of being an
alumni of AIM, but being here with you, the business
community. I was a part of you before joining
government service. And you, through gatherings such
as this, serve to keep me grounded on how things ought
to be done.
The importance of homecomings and alumni associations
goes beyond the networking and fellowship. An alumni
association turns the nostalgia for shared experiences
into a means for continuing education after obtaining
one’s degree – an education gained from staying in
touch and sharing lessons learned since the completion
of our formal study. Alumni associations such as
yours, not only provides support for the alma mater.
They serve as well as a vehicle for transmitting
culture, as one generation of graduates helps ensure
that the virtues of an educational institution are
upheld in daily life and in the life of the
institution.
What are these virtues? Integrity, Competence,
Accountability, Relevance. Clear benchmarks for
gauging performance. All these we imbibe not only
through what we’ve learned, but because we accept the
responsibility that our education and our various
professions impose upon us. These are the virtues that
makes for trustworthy, reliable, and credible people
and institutions.
As the theme of your association’s gathering is, so it
should be for our national life: “Leadership: Live
it.” This is the call of our times.
It is ironic that even as individual graduates have
done well for themselves and AIM itself has maintained
its outstanding reputation and high standing, the
situs of this great institution, has not.
The country – our country – is in crisis, a crisis of
confidence.
Notice that I say crisis of confidence, and not a
political crisis, because it goes beyond the simple
partisan considerations that turn off so many people
regardless of their socio-economic class. The malaise
is more pervasive than we know and like an unspoken
plague, it threatens to consume us all. It involves
the near-total assumption by the governed, that those
governing deserve neither confidence nor even token
assistance. It becomes every man for himself.
Accordingly, the led have near universal disdain for
those doing the leading.
All of us are familiar with the axiom that
differentiates between Management and Leadership. The
former enables us to do things right. The latter
enables us to do the right thing.
Paradoxically, over the last several years, I think
it’s fair to say that we’ve seen oftentimes doing the
right thing is achieved simply by doing things right.
We have come to recognize that the folly of playing to
the crowd; the perils of going along to get along, of
thinking merely in terms of the least common
denominator; and the dangers inherent in dumbing down
of the market are present with us.
Our failing and still falling standing in all sorts of
international rankings is testament to this. World
Economic Forum Competitiveness Survey ranks us in 2005
at no. 77, down from no. 66 in 2003. Transparency
International Corruption Index ranks us in 2005 no.
124, down from no. 97 in 2003. Most alarmingly, for
the long-term, the Trends in International Math and
Science Survey has us, as well, ranking much lower
today than it did 5 years ago. We are no. 41 versus
no. 36 in 1998.
Well, let me assert that the market is not dumb, and
that in fact, the market has reached a consensus. That
consensus is: the country cannot continue on its
present rudderless course. Change must occur. The
consensus, such as it exists, founders at this point
due to our society’s inability to agree on what kind
of change, when, and how.
A story from the Analects of Confucius is useful to
figure out what kind of change we really need.
A student asked Confucius: “If the Prince of Wei
appointed you head of the government, to what would
you first set your mind?”
Confucius replied: “To call people and things by their
names, that is, by their correct denomination, to see
that the terminology is exact.”
The pupil could not believe his own ears. His master’s
reply seemed beside the point.
Noting his incredulity, the master said: “An
intelligent man hesitates to talk of what he doesn’t
understand, he feels embarrassment.
Confucius continued, “If the terminology be not exact,
if it fit not the thing, the governmental instructions
will not be explicit, if the instructions aren’t clear
and the names don’t fit, you cannot conduct business
properly.
“If business is not properly run, penalties and
punishments will not achieve their intended effects,
if penalties and punishments do not produce equity and
justice, the people won’t know where to put their feet
or what to lay hold of or to whom they should stretch
out their hands.
“That is why an intelligent man cares for his
terminology and gives instructions that fit. When his
orders are clear and explicit they can be put into
effect.”
The moral of this tale? Good government is founded on
respect for the truth.
Or, as Jollibee’s Tony Tan would say: be careful how
one defines the problem, else the solution will likely
be wrong.
In short, magpakatotoo tayo, nang magawa natin kung
ano ang tama.
During the Vietnam War, American confidence in their
government crumbled due to what was called “the
credibility gap”. Official statements increasingly
seemed detached from reality. This gap between reality
as the citizen knew it, and as the government wanted
them to see it, became the seed of a new emergent
attitude towards government: skepticism for government
itself, evolving into a newly-learned activism. And
America has never been the same since.
A similar credibility gap is taking place in our
country today. Headlines of GDP growth, soaring stock
markets, strengthening peso are met with the daily
reality of joblessness, higher cost of living, the
sachet-ing of the economy, and the daily exodus of
thousands of our fellow Filipinos. Thus, the
disconnect as between the citizen and this government.
That disconnect grows into a chasm as more people
realize that over the decades, ours has become a
government of rhetoric, not reality; a construct
mostly in name, not in actual service delivery.
Reality is what interests the professional manager,
not window-dressing. It is also, on a more basic but
therefore, more emotional level, what any citizen here
confronts on a daily basis.
They see what’s wrong, they sense what is true: that
the government seems to have gone off course, and it
expects the governed to blindly follow suit. They
continue to sacrifice and yet all they receive for
fulfilling their citizen’s duty is smoke and mirrors,
in short, propaganda.
Let me cite a few examples of what I mean.
Last year we spent some P900B and this year we will
spend in excess of P1 T. That’s real money;
especially real to those who will be doing the
financing (you, me, Juan dela Cruz). And yet, except
in a few instances, many feel like life isn’t any
better after all of that spending.
Recently, the Senate began discussions on the
anti-terror bill. The bill contains extreme provisions
that would allow the State to arrest and hold
uncharged before a court, for a period of 2 weeks, an
individual suspected of being a terrorist; moreover,
it shall allow the state to generally invade the
privacy of this suspected terrorist.
And yet, we find on the management side the
fingerprint files of the NBI are in a card catalogue
and its searches are done manually, and further that
its data base are not in synch with other enforcement
agencies such as immigration for passports, LTO for
drivers licenses and the like. In short, left hand
right hand not knowing where the real goods are.
More chillingly, one of the key implementers of the
proposed law will be the ISAFP, the same ISAFP that
abducted several people, held them incommunicado for
several days in a safe house, then surfaced them only
to have the DOJ release them for lack of evidence.
Another example is that touted by several agencies,
that of a “web-enabled” access to the services they
render, thus implying modern, fast, efficient
performance. And yet we find that past the high-tech
interface with the client, the same old manual system
that actually processes the papers is still in use.
And then, of course, we have the recent uproar over
the classroom shortages. But enough said about that.
Reality is harsh, and what applies to the foregoing
likewise applies to nearly everything else.
In short, the citizen experiences daily that acute
disconnect as between the high sounding names and
mandates of this government’s programs and projects
and this daily reality that few, if any, of these
actually touch his life or improve his lot.
Indeed, a consensus for change exists, but what the
government has proposed as an answer to address this
consensus only inspires greater division. The supreme
act of window-dressing is Charter change.
The public knows this. They know that fancy–isms,
parliamentarism, unicameralism, federalism, are in
this instance gaudy window-dressing to disguise the
true nature of the proposed changes, which is,
government for the professional politicians, by the
professional politicians, and with only the
professional politicians.
Charter change, as presently proposed, will
irreparably alter the intricate balance among our
institutions that are designed to moderate excess and
to promote good governance. Effectively, it will
concentrate power among those already in power and
reduce the chances for reform.
It does this by granting a bonus for all officials
above the barangay level by way of an election-free
additional term, abolishing term limits, lengthening
the terms of these officials from 3 years to 5 years,
severely reducing the restrictions on the imposition
of martial law and limiting, if not eliminating, the
oversight powers of other institutions such as the
Supreme Court
As for ordinary people? Well, they are asked to forego
their long-held right to choose their chief executive
and in place thereof have their politicians choose
among themselves who among them will hold the key to
the chicken coop
At the heart of this propaganda is a misconception:
that by themselves, Constitutions promote economic
development.
There is no established causal connection between the
form of government and economic development; in fact
if any, the connection is against the parliamentary
form. Winnie Monsod recently looked at the literature
on the subject and concluded that the best that can be
said, is that parliamentary governments lead to
greater expenditures because of patronage, while
presidential systems are ideally better at mobilizing
resources for national concerns.
What has been clearly established by studies conducted
by Jeffrey Sachs, the ADB and many others is the
causal connection between, not form of government, but
between good governance and economic development.
Appropriate policy choice, effective execution are
found to be the differentiating factors for success.
There is a management axiom I’m sure you’re all
familiar with: “Never give up the long term.” The
various solutions proposed by the Charter change
proponents all serve the short-term political and
power interests, and ignore or sacrifice the long
term.
There is nothing in the present Charter that prevents
government from addressing our most basic problems.
And yet despite all its inherent powers, the
government seems incapable of effectively attending to
our most pressing needs.
The public knows our problems are so extensive, that
we can only begin to solve them. What they do not see
is an honest reckoning of the truth, much less a
well-defined plan to sensibly solve things. Give a
person a plan, and it can be debated, but at least
there’s a plan. Given half a chance, I am confident
the public would give any sensible plan a chance. But
the plan must be anchored on reality not as leaders
claim exists, but on what people know for a fact to
really exist.
Education, food, health care, and jobs: these are our
national priorities. The Filipino who grew up with the
harsh realities of life here at home does amazingly
well abroad: we endlessly hear that. What we hear less
often is that they do so, because the natural
instincts of the Filipino, to be industrious,
law-abiding, productive, and enterprising, face fewer
obstacles on a daily basis overseas than they do here
at home.
So that is what we must change. It is what’s being
changed on a daily basis, in small ways, all over the
country. It is being done regardless of whether or not
those in politics are for such changes, or against
them. The effort has yet to reach a critical mass, but
it will.
It simply begins with a basic adherence to identifying
what’s real. It starts with committing to being
informed – and informing the public that their reality
is shared, conceptually, by those tasked with
leadership. Populism is fueled by frustration;
frustration is born of recognizing leaders living in a
kind of alternative universe in which the ordinary
citizen exists to be patronized and not served.
We do not need to reinvent the wheel. The Constitution
provides us with sufficient powers to promote
development and progress; and perhaps more importantly
during these turbulent times, the stability we need to
insulate us from the policy-of-the-moment swings of
our leaders.
All the constitutions in the world cannot give sight
to those who are willfully blind; however brilliantly
drafted, a constitution cannot restore social cohesion
in a society mistrustful of its leadership. Only a
leadership interested in making things work, can get a
people to go to work and work together.
But what is a leader, if there are no followers? Gary
Wills, in his book on leadership, says beyond leaders
and followers, a third element is easily overlooked –
the goal. It is the equalizer between followers and
leaders.
Millennia before Wills, Confucius said the same thing:
what is necessary to preserve the state, he was asked.
And given a choice: an army, food, or the confidence
of the people? The most expendable, he said, was the
army; next, was food: but without the confidence of
the people, no government can stand at all.
And that is what we are seeing today: a crisis of
confidence. To restore the confidence, let us identify
the one, great need, which is: to do the right thing
by doing things right.

How can we do this? First by saying no to Charter
Change as it’s being presently proposed – as with the
Hippocratic oath, first let us pledge to do no harm.
Let us solve our real problems first, and not create
new ones in the process.
Then I ask you to continue to engage government, by
holding it accountable for its actions or its
inaction.
I ask you to constantly press that government to apply
the private sector disciplines, your best practice
methods, that serve to ensure success in the real
marketplace – the good governance principles of
integrity, relevance, competence, accountability and
clear benchmarks for measuring performance, in that
way we can rebuild trust in our institutions, and
ultimately in our democracy.
These are the solutions to our very real problems;
these and nothing more, because these are the things
that count most to real people.
Enough of the smoke and mirrors. Our people know
what’s real and what’s not, even if their own
government thinks otherwise.
I want to thank you for your attention and
congratulate you for this successful event.
Thank you very much.

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Sen. Mar Roxas Speech