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No Hard
Rules
By Michael Alan Hamlin
January 27, 2004
In a widely reported meeting with
business leaders last week, presidential candidate Fernando Poe
Jr. - Allan Kelley Poe in real life - told a select group of elite
businesspeople that he would end corruption and make bureaucracy
transparent in his first 100 days in office. If Poe - who leads
the surveys in the presidential derby - winds up wielding that kind
of political clout in his first 100 days it won't matter if he does
anything else.
It won't matter because Poe will have somehow managed to do what
many believe to be impossible, and what everyone views as chronic,
fundamental institutional infirmities that have held the Philippines
back since independence. Of course, the notion of anyone being able
to end corruption and create a transparent bureaucracy in 100 days
is absurd, and as empty a promise as one can imagine emanating from
between a politician's slippery lips.
Yet Poe is not alone in his unbridled optimism. Business - or at
least the business associations present for the meeting with Mr.
Poe - are developing a plan for the first 100 days of the next administration,
too. And that plan, they say, will jumpstart the economy, improve
peace and order, create jobs, and alleviate poverty. "This
is our way of working within the democratic system," said former
finance secretary Jose Pardo of the plan. Pardo served in the government
of displaced former president Joseph Estrada.
"Many of our problems have been here for the longest time,"
Pardo explained somewhat disingenuously. "What is really needed
is effective implementation. It is our intention to shepherd all
the way these badly needed reforms." Observers, naturally,
can't be faulted for wondering what stopped Pardo and his other
business friends from shepherding these badly needed reforms - whatever
they turn out to be - "all the way" during the time he
was a key figure in government.
Other key figures in the development of the plan are said to be
Washington SyCip, the near legendary founder of SGV & Company,
and Manuel V. Pangilinan, president of PLDT. Pardo's claim to business
fame is tied to his Seven Eleven convenience store and Wendy's fast-food
restaurant franchises. SyCip founded the first Asian regional accounting
practice, and Pangilinan is the front man for Hong Kong-based First
Pacific Group. All, incidentally, have thrived under present conditions,
making their avowed aversion to the status quo at least somewhat
curious.
But if these rainmakers and their friends are really serious, their
concern shouldn't be the first 100 days of anyone's presidency,
it should be what's going to happen over the next six years, which
is sufficient time to make credible, "feel-able" headway
in tackling the Philippines' myriad problems. If they truly care
about the Philippines and its future, their plan should address
issues that may actually negatively affect their businesses. Such
issues could include reforms ranging from strengthening the rule
of law to embracing competition and liberalization.
The sincerity of business leaders' self-professed wishes for reforms
is frequently greeted with skepticism because what business wants
has so frequently been situational. Yes, we want liberalization
as long as it doesn't affect our business. Sure, rule of law is
a good thing as long as I win. Certainly we want a strong president
as long as he's my president. The fact is the reason there are no
hard rules in the Philippines is because powerful interests aren't
willing to pay the price they demand. Because the price involves
the giving up - or at least the sharing - of economic power.
Ironically, the softness of the rules as they are was demonstrated
last week by the attempts to prove that Poe isn't a natural born
Filipino, and therefore doesn't qualify to run for president. The
argument is that Poe is the illegitimate product of a union between
a Spanish father and an American mother. Under the law when Poe
was born and the Philippines was a US colony, illegitimate children
took the citizenship of the father.
Aside from the uncomfortable reality that employing such a standard
would likely leave a good many Filipinos suddenly stateless, what
makes this whole attempt so alarming is precisely the willingness
of powerful sectors to employ any means - and bend any rule - to
get their way. And their way in this instance involves removing
what little power the average Filipino actually has to determine
his future.
The effort to use the Commission on Elections and the judiciary
to strip Poe of his citizenship further illustrates this ritual.
On the one hand, powerful interests insist they want an impartial,
honest election overseer, but maybe not if the result is another
actor-president. Business insists that rule of law must be strengthened,
but why is it so weak in the first place? Who pays the bribes, after
all, that have given us the judiciary we have?
Business - or those who claim to speak for business - is right when
it says we need some hard rules. But do they really mean it?
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is currently
at work on High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Asian Professionals
into Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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