We are all blind of what we need to do

We are all blind of what we need to do?

Other neighbouring countries in Asia have been consistently showing so much national development initiatives, while ours is still lagging behind. Why? Because no president has the will power to radically change our bureaucracy for the betterment of the country, except president Marcos and his cronies to enrich themselves too. We stick to what we have been doing all through the years. What do we do all through the years? Annual budgeting and annually spending it all throughout. We are like a very ordinary household who has an OFW, always waiting for the money to spend and wait again after. Thier purpose is only to consume and nothing more. So, when the OFW was terminated all of them end up to nothing. That is the same with our country.

In the case of project planning and implementation we have been practicing to hire so many consultants local and abroad and some of it have nothing to do with actual consultancy works, without ever seeing what we need to do to improve our way of doing things with the main intention of saving a sizable amount through the implementation of all projects, by cutting the cost of procurement of materials and giving the chance to our employed engineers to do the job by themselves and not by these contractors who produces instant millionaire to regional directors and other top level department personnel and secretaries.

Every year we build school buildings, low cost housing units, roads and bridges. What we don’t see is how we can improve our process whereby we will save up to 50% of the total cost of implementation and that the national savings from each department will be used to finance other programs and projects of the government.

How can we do it?

Let’s see first the situation we are in, we do a lot of paper works for nothing as we do not know what is competitive bidding, what we know is to give our projects to contractors whom they themselves are congressmen, senators, department secretaries and the like.

What do we have?

Gravel, sand, cement and steel and the willingness of our engineers’ to do it in order that they can practice their profession. If we will let those engineers do it then the cost of implementation will be reduced to more or less 50%. Why? Because in the first place the contractor’s profit will be abolished. Administrative cost will be reduced and so with the proliferation of AIDS. What is AIDS by the way? Acquired Income Derived from other Sources like Mikey Arroyo and all others.

My main point is that we have to be self sufficient and self reliant as a government. We have to see to it that we have the available materials for the repeated annual projects we have. So first and foremost we will build a casting yard (reference only http://www.gerwick.com/pdf/casting_facility.pdf), not the very costly type, the Filipino type and acquire a regionalized gravel and sand concessions, processing plants and a mountain so big enough to supply the casting yard, where the school buildings and row houses will be built in modular scheme then deliver it to the other departments for installation and to include roads and bridges, walls and other projects made of concrete. The casting yard also can be relocated if transportation cost of the inputs and outputs is high. This technology is used already by Hongkong (Reference only: Department of Building and Construction, City University of Hong Kong)

  and other countries why can’t we design and build ourselves.

We can even sell our products and services to other countries. A research team of design engineers must be in place to give innovations towards lowering the cost of project implementation. So it has to start from the planning stage then deliver it like a box and assemble it. Fast and easy to assemble like the Presidential bridges that we have. So it must be distributed on a regional basis. In my experience it is only a matter of preference. Of course so many of our people in the government will oppose this one because of so many reasons but ultimately the main reason is their pocket will not be full.

We see these things of massive graft and corruption because we don’t change our ways of doing things.

At the start , we will invest so much but ultimately we will gain. We have mountains in every region to supply gravel and sand and even cement.  What we need are machineries in processing to produced high grade gravel and sand to pre-cast school buildings, roads and bridges.

The Program of Works made by these people in our offices must be thoroughly reviewed and see the percentages of costing per item of work and compare it to implement it by administration with all the materials produced by us. A set of engineers will study to improve our costing process with the end view of savings. Nationally, I know we can save billions of pesos. What we need are fresh graduates only. Because their minds are pure and simple. A group of people who will do the study but limited to come up with a comparison of implementation. What we have today is by contract on almost all our projects why can’t we do it ourselves. In making a project by administration and by contract is a very big disparity and it will lessen graft and corruption. Almost all projects can be made 100% on site or precast then deliver. Of course proper consultation to the end user is a must. What we need is a casting yard and its accessories. A rock crusher and some heavy equipments. A casting yard for our standard only and to improve as experienced teach us. The number of people must be limited to actual workers involved. And all workers must be computer literate.

A group of people must see what the bureaucrats have done or the engineers have done to come up a better way of doing it with the end view of reducing the costing process. It is found in the itemized cost.

Where did we buy it. How much is the actual price. Why can’t we do it that simple way? We don’t even know anymore how to buy a ream of bond paper. All of us are already blind, with eyes that cannot see.

If we can do it this way we will attract more funds and investment because they can rely our project implementation system already. And ultimately we Filipinos can improve this technology and we can contract projects in other countries. We have Filipinos who have already ample experienced in this technology.

Implementation by contract disadvantage our engineers on the real experience of project implementation having no participation but monitoring only rather than actual practice.

Graft and corruption as always

Graft and Corruption as always

What is the situation of graft and corruption in our country today?

This situation as I believe is getting much worse than ever due to the unwillingness of our public officials to reform themselves to include the Presidents, generals and other high ranking  officials while they are in position in the government.  Or to help curtail this situation. We have too much written and approved circulars, guidelines and national laws governing of bureaucracy but to no success, rather it just bloated to much, to uncontrolled proportions and mostly not being known to the public or to the right authorities who themselves are corrupt. So, how can a nation rise from this situation if almost all high or higher officials of this government are so corrupt in themselves. Look at the Marcoses, Estradas, and Ramoses administrations. The latest is the Macapagal Arroyos. It is almost impossible. We may not admit it but it is true in almost all government departments.

What are the signs that this is becoming worse? Number 1, is our increasing annual budget deficit. Instead of saving we overspend, and then the question is how and when, can we get up if this is always the trend? If we are serious enough to tackle our scenario then we have to save money in all our departments and spend less to unnecessary spending.

Why we deficit? Because we spend our annual budget in less than a year. And experience shows that once the budget is approved our main concern is to spend the money rather than actually working. Do you not observe our offices? What do you see in our tables? Disbursement vouchers in the guise that we are actually trying our best to see to it that all our transactions are being taken care of and scrutinized to pass COA regulations. COA regulations are not sufficient enough to curtail graft and corruption. Now the question is what we actually ought to focus on ourselves? Why we cannot focus on problem solving or field works to see to it that our development projects are implemented they way it should be? And refine our implementation system. Why money is always the main focus? On the other hand it is because the more we spend money in our offices, the more we get our SOP which becomes already institutionalized. That is why that we cannot control graft because of that. But we cannot see it anymore because we see it as very normal to ourselves and even demand for it from our creditors, the private sector or your boss transforming themselves to businessmen while in power.

So how can we improve ourselves now? Even how many best presidents of our country, it falls to that culture. But do you think we have to let these things go as it is? Of course the answer is no. Because in our inner self we know that it is not good and not necessary. However, we enjoy doing it all the time because it is money without any capital. Meaning we are involved in big business without pure capital.

Who are the biggest grafters? These are the subjects:

1.      The President himself

2.      His cabinet members local and abroad

a.      Department Secretaries

b.      Under Secretaries

c.      Regional Directors

d.      Provincial Directors

3.      GCC officials

4.      The senators

5.      The congressmen

6.      Governors and mayors

7.      Local government heads of each department.

THERE SHOULD BE A MONITORING BODY TO SEE, IF WHAT THESE PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY DOING. THERE LIFESTYLE, AND HOW THEY HANDLE THE OFFICE BUDGET. IT MAY APPEAR THAT THEY ARE SPENDING NORMALLY BUT IS IT REALLY THE ACCEPTABLE SITUATION? OR IT CAN STILL BE IMPROVE?

So, how can you do it if we want to run our bureaucracy fairly? But let’s try. The problem is how?

The HOW is the hardest part. But you know, all the people I mentioned above will say hello, I’m not corrupt like the others. I am only corrupt institutionally. The cash they received is from the ghost activities of their departments, the contractors or bidders and suppliers or gifts, in exchange of rendering services, but whether he ask for it or not, it is corruption. And that is the real situation, we are a double face people as a part of our culture. Meaning we are a corrupt culture, but most of us will not accept it. We have actually no controls and exact situationer in almost all of our departments or like these GCC’s. Yes absolutely, because we have no clear definition of graft and corruption. We have no definite annual assessment on these departments whether they are performing well or not, as far as spending money is concerned. Because what we receive from them are well written orchestrated bureaucratic official reports. They do not show the real situation of each department.

What we know is that as long as it will pass our COA system then it is alright to amass money from the government. Meaning it is an acceptable manner as most others do or having their fair share of graft and corruption. But whether it is recorded formally in the ombudsman or not, still we are committing graft and corruption. The biggest money we are losing is actually more on the institutionally accepted graft and corruption level in our bureaucracy. Or they are committing to a certain extent in graft and corruption acceptable in our government standards. But what we ought to do is to eradicate even a mere tint of graft and corruption. So we ought to review, and then revised our standards with the end view of eradicating unwanted expenditures or unrestrained overpricing of expenditures. As much as possible these people must not be involved in handling money but rather in line with distribution of goods and services only. Because money is the main root of graft and corruption.

What do you need to know?

If the Lord is here then where is he?

If the Lord is here then where is He? Why do I search for Him? He said in the bible that, whatever I ask of Him, He will give? I ask Him forgiveness of all my shortcomings, but He is deaf and blind that He cannot see me. Why He does not actually recognized me? I want to serve His people and believe that I can, but where is He. Maybe He is very busy.

When I was very young at about five years old, I had a dream:

The first scene, I was very busy playing at a railroad track in our town besides the plaza. At that moment there was a procession in vivid colors of saints coming out of the church entrance towards me where St Joseph in his green habit was the one leading. They are assorted of saints in long procession. At same moment I broke the steel railway where they are having a procession. The railway seems so old enough. Then Joseph was angry at me even if I was trying myself to repair it. Of course I cried too much.

The second scene was that, I was cradled by Jesus Christ himself in His arms while He was sitting on a chair at the near center of our hexagonal wooden kiosk. He has a red color habit and I was still crying in his arms. I even saw his pimples in his face and his eyes looking at me, and then suddenly he kissed me. When I look around, there were so many people around us. There was a very big crowd.

I do not know the meaning of that dream, that it was so vivid that I cannot forget it. I ask my mother about it the time we woke up but my mother was very busy smoking and did not reply to me. She just ignored my dream.

When I try to recall my past it was complicated and was not good because of too much hardships and sacrifices. I grown up having nothing compared to other children. My parents were very poor that three of my sisters died at a very young age except Zenaida at nearly seven years old. We seldom eat rice mostly rootcrops from our farmland. I have only very few clothes and no shoes. I serve as an altar boy at our church in Giporlos in my high school days.

After I got married I serve the church as lay minister for a few years and tried myself very much to search for the Lord. But I did not find him in my heart as they said. But so many times in my life I feel his presence while I am in great trouble.

I have many experiences in life that nearly cost my life and firmly believe that He intervenes in so many instances.

At an early age of less than ten years old on Christmas day, I was standing at a corner street, when suddenly a Jeepney was making a speedy curb dragging a corrugated galvanized roofing iron to produced so much noise just after 12:00 midnight as part of the Christmas celebration, the galvanized iron nearly hit me, if not for the big solid steel in that corner where the galvanized iron hit and made me protected by it as it smash. If not because of that steel I have been cut by it and surely dead.

In the year 1989, I worked in the coal mine of Giporlos as a contractor when at one time a very big boulder of soft coal give way where my right leg was pin down and the people there help me untangle my position from that situation where a more cave in is going to happen that I should have been dead. A man working by my side help me so much. I was saved.

Sometime on August 2007 when I was in the Pacific Ocean for 15 days catching yellow fins as an adventure, about 135 miles East of Samar island on a 4DR5 Fuso Canter motorized boat, there was a typhoon coming on day 13 and we were forced to go home. While going home it was a life and death situation since our boat was very small and floating only about one foot clear from the ocean surface. We were only three people on that time Prody, Noli and me. The black sky was circling above us and raining too much night and day. The waves were so high and our speed was only one mile per hour as seen in our GPS. There and then I prayed to God for my death as an acceptable proposition. I told Him honestly that I AM READY TO DIE AS YOU WISH EVEN IN THE SEA. I prayed so hard and accepted death to come at any time as there was plentiful of sea water coming inside our boat. No land in sight. But after two days we see an island and a lighthouse in it, and give us hope for life. The Lord did not want me to die in the sea, only to find out later when we arrived home that the rear of the boat was badly damaged. At that time I am sure that the Lord has interfered with my life for good and maybe for a reason. But until now I do not know my mission in life. What does He want me to do with my remaining life here on earth? Is it enough looking at me like this all throughout? What should I do to let Him come into my heart and stay permanently?

So, if the Lord is here then where is He?

ching, the dreamer

chingesic@gmail.com