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Walk the Talk
By Michael Alan Hamlin
April 12, 1999

"I’m tired of all these meetings," I was told this week about the various task forces, competitiveness boards, and eminent persons brainstorming sessions intended to address issues of national competitiveness and economic development. "I wish they would just shut up and do something." Indeed, 10-months into the Estrada Administration, it’s time to walk the talk.

There’s not much argument that, for the most part, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has been saying the right things. But aside from accelerating tariff reform, what has it actually done?

That’s a tough question to answer, because there aren’t many measures by which to gauge progress. This is the case not just for DTI, however. The Estrada Administration has yet to define in terms of specific, measurable goals what it intends to achieve. Until it does, we won’t know what — if anything — government is doing to contribute to recovery and growth.

Perhaps it has failed to come up with operational goals because the Administration doesn’t know where it wants to take the country strategically. In other words, there’s no vision. As a result, there is no sense of direction, other than the vague desire to alleviate poverty in the countryside by increasing the level of resources directed to the agricultural sector. Instead of a sense of direction, there is a sense of "wandering around." Of being adrift.

And after all, it’s not easy to articulate "vision." Perhaps that’s the problem: it’s hard to do. It’s hard to do, in part, because it requires a commitment to goals that involve huge leadership risks. Leadership stakes its credibility — and legitimacy — to bringing about the vision it articulates. Failure to achieve development goals communicates the idea, and most likely the reality, that leadership is not up to the job.
Is the alternative, piddling around, any less risky? It depends. Luck can save a dawdling administration as U.S. President Bill Clinton has consistently demonstrated. Here is a president that has failed to get a single major piece of legislation through Congress. Yet he, like Mr. Estrada, enjoys overwhelmingly positive approval ratings. And despite eye-ball peeling scandal.

Mr. Clinton is the lucky beneficiary of a vibrant economy that owes its development to a private sector that consistently delivers quantum leaps in efficiency, productivity, and value-added. The private sector is able to do these things because of at least three circumstances: 1) it recreated itself after being beaten up by the Japanese; 2) government reoriented itself as chiefly a catalyst rather than a regulator of business; and, 3) the educational infrastructure fosters innovation and resourcefulness.

The Asian financial crisis taught Asia that resource mobilization alone cannot be relied upon as the driver of economic growth. The effects of globalization require that resources be used resourcefully, even in developing economies. This means that development models — at least the common denominators of development — have changed. Liberalization and technology continuously accelerate the pace of change. And, democratic reforms throughout the world act to increase the pressure for reform, or palpable, measurable results from government in response to these new realities.

What this means for the Philippines — and most of the rest of Southeast Asia — is that it must move past the mundane debates. Indeed, the preoccupying debates are timeworn and increasingly fuzzy. They are first, the uneasy — probably impossible — balance between fostering free enterprise and the perceived need to protect "special" sectors of the economy. Second, how to enhance national competitiveness in the race for job-creating foreign investment. In fact, we know the answers to these questions, and have for quite some time. In other words, it’s time to do something relevant, important, and measurable. It’s time to act. To turn vision into reality.

But didn’t we just say that Mr. Clinton has done well despite his vision? Well, yes, we did. That doesn’t means Mr. Clinton hasn’t benefited from vision, just that the vision he has capitalized on wasn’t his. It was his predecessor’s.

In fact, in most respects, Mr. Estrada intends to do exactly the same thing. His Administration consistently reiterates its commitment to pursuing the reforms undertaken by his predecessor. The difference here is that Mr. Clinton’s predecessor presided over the creative destruction of the private sector and its recreation. Infrastructure and education were already in place, or had developed a life of their own, like the Internet.

For Mr. Estrada, all these things have to be done at once. The private sector needs to recreate itself with the benefit, hopefully, of a strict but benevolent government while government itself struggles to become relevant. Infrastructure inadequacies must be urgently addressed, and education must be urgently reinvigorated. If Mr. Estrada is somehow able to do these things, the really lucky Philippine president will be the next one.

Former President Fidel Ramos was right when he suggested his work had just begun. Mr. Estrada, and the country, is in no position to benefit from the accomplishments of the previous administration. As a matter of fact, it’s likely that the accomplishments of Mr. Ramos brought the country to the point where it could address the really tough issues, in the same way that finishing the construction of a house is where the real time — and skill — comes in.

If Mr. Estrada in fact does have a successful administration, it will not be because of Mr. Ramos’ work. It will be because he will have brought about the conditions necessary to give the next president the opportunity to coast.

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