Secrets
Secrets
Updated 02:23am (Mla time) Dec 15, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 15, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
LEE Hsien Loong, Lee Kuan Yew's son and the incumbent prime minister of Singapore, had some interesting things to say to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Diosdado Macapagal's daughter and incumbent President of the Philippines, when he visited here last week. The secret of Singapore's success, he said, was three things: clean government, good pay for civil servants and the certainty of retribution for erring officials and employees.
True. Clean government is essential to progress. Example is the best teacher, something Lee Kuan Yew, however you disagree with his methods, has proven by his own conduct. There is no problem with a strict disciplinarian who punishes infractions severely, but there is a problem with a strict disciplinarian who does so while being personally given to the commission of the cardinal sins rather than the cardinal virtues. You can accuse Lee Kuan Yew of many things, but you cannot accuse him of ripping off his country.
There is no problem with a president vowing to punish wrongdoers harshly. But there is a problem with a President doing that who has vowed she would not run again on the ground she would only foment disunity if she does, who has bankrupted the treasury to campaign, who has borrowed more than two presidents combined and has only widespread hunger and the specter of an economic collapse to show for it. Example gives the fiercest lesson of all. A leader lies, cheats and steals, the citizens will lie, cheat and steal.
Civil servants do deserve better pay. But they may also not exist plentifully. I've been saying that about the police, the military and the civilian bureaucracy for a long time. They are bloated, they are a refuge for the corrupt and incompetent. We reduce their size to a tenth of what they are, and overnight we will experience a vast improvement in peace and order and efficiency in the delivery of services. At the very least, because there will be fewer bank robbers, murderers and crooks running around in khaki and barong Tagalog.
Then pay the remaining cops, soldiers and bureaucrats good wages. But only as a matter of justice, not as a matter of stopping corruption. No level of pay will stop corruption-greed is bottomless. Only a culture of honesty will, one that rewards good and punishes evil.
Which brings us to Lee's last point. In this country, every time a monumental iniquity happens, the universal call is to mete out the death penalty to the criminals. Well, the death penalty, or any penalty, including torture, won't mean anything if the criminals are not caught. Only recently, government officials have been shouting death to the "illegal loggers." In fact, it is not the "illegal loggers" who have wrought the deaths in Quezon, it is the legal ones. It was not the logs of the “kaingeros” and the Dumagats that tumbled on the folk that lived at the foot of the mountain, it was the logs of the legal loggers.
Joseph Estrada's trial has become a travesty. All it says is not that the crooked will be punished but that the clown will be caught. It does not warn public officials to be honest, it warns them to be careful.
Lee's comments are worth taking seriously. But I myself have always thought they were derivative problems in our context. Our not having a clean government, our not paying officials right, and our not punishing wrongdoers themselves owe to deeper problems, whose solutions Singapore also points to.
The first of these problems is a lack of sense of country. I've talked about this repeatedly. Corruption does happen in other countries. Indonesia has the dubious honor of having had a leader, Suharto, who topped Transparency International's list of most corrupt tyrants in the world (Ferdinand Marcos was only second). We keep envying Singapore for its ironfisted rule. Well, Thailand too has progressed by leaps and bounds and it isn't ruled by an iron fist. What Singapore and Thailand simply have in common are people who would not dream of being citizens of a country other than Singapore and Thailand.
The second I've also talked about repeatedly. Corruption riots because we do not have a sense of taxpayers' money. The money we give in taxes we regard as tribute or “balato,” something we part with grudgingly, never expecting them to come back in roads, bridges and services. We rough up pickpockets in the streets because we regard what they do as stealing. We don't do the same thing to public officials because we regard what they do as ROI, a return on (campaign) investment.
And finally, a sense of pride. Over the past several months, I've gotten a lot of irate mail from Filipinos demanding to know what I've got against nurses and caregivers. It's perfectly respectable work, why do I keep putting it down? My answer to this is that I'm not. I'm not putting down nurses and caregivers, I'm putting down the attitude that we can only be a nation of nurses and caregivers. An attitude to be found in our doctors agreeing to become so abroad, and in our educational system, which is being geared to produce an army of nurses and caregivers. We used to be second only to Japan in economic potential in the 1950s. Have we fallen so low?
Contrast that with the attitude of Singaporeans that says anything you can do, I can do better. You may find that attitude a little arrogant, but it's the kind of attitude that makes Singapore Airlines one of the best in the world, and that makes airline personnel chase after you when you've left something at the airport. I personally experienced the latter, while in a state of utter absentmindedness, and this wasn't after 9/11 either. They take pride in honesty. You do not become world-class by having the mentality of a parochial. You do not join the guests at the table by having the mentality of a servant.
Some secrets are not really that hard to fathom.
Updated 02:23am (Mla time) Dec 15, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the December 15, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
LEE Hsien Loong, Lee Kuan Yew's son and the incumbent prime minister of Singapore, had some interesting things to say to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Diosdado Macapagal's daughter and incumbent President of the Philippines, when he visited here last week. The secret of Singapore's success, he said, was three things: clean government, good pay for civil servants and the certainty of retribution for erring officials and employees.
True. Clean government is essential to progress. Example is the best teacher, something Lee Kuan Yew, however you disagree with his methods, has proven by his own conduct. There is no problem with a strict disciplinarian who punishes infractions severely, but there is a problem with a strict disciplinarian who does so while being personally given to the commission of the cardinal sins rather than the cardinal virtues. You can accuse Lee Kuan Yew of many things, but you cannot accuse him of ripping off his country.
There is no problem with a president vowing to punish wrongdoers harshly. But there is a problem with a President doing that who has vowed she would not run again on the ground she would only foment disunity if she does, who has bankrupted the treasury to campaign, who has borrowed more than two presidents combined and has only widespread hunger and the specter of an economic collapse to show for it. Example gives the fiercest lesson of all. A leader lies, cheats and steals, the citizens will lie, cheat and steal.
Civil servants do deserve better pay. But they may also not exist plentifully. I've been saying that about the police, the military and the civilian bureaucracy for a long time. They are bloated, they are a refuge for the corrupt and incompetent. We reduce their size to a tenth of what they are, and overnight we will experience a vast improvement in peace and order and efficiency in the delivery of services. At the very least, because there will be fewer bank robbers, murderers and crooks running around in khaki and barong Tagalog.
Then pay the remaining cops, soldiers and bureaucrats good wages. But only as a matter of justice, not as a matter of stopping corruption. No level of pay will stop corruption-greed is bottomless. Only a culture of honesty will, one that rewards good and punishes evil.
Which brings us to Lee's last point. In this country, every time a monumental iniquity happens, the universal call is to mete out the death penalty to the criminals. Well, the death penalty, or any penalty, including torture, won't mean anything if the criminals are not caught. Only recently, government officials have been shouting death to the "illegal loggers." In fact, it is not the "illegal loggers" who have wrought the deaths in Quezon, it is the legal ones. It was not the logs of the “kaingeros” and the Dumagats that tumbled on the folk that lived at the foot of the mountain, it was the logs of the legal loggers.
Joseph Estrada's trial has become a travesty. All it says is not that the crooked will be punished but that the clown will be caught. It does not warn public officials to be honest, it warns them to be careful.
Lee's comments are worth taking seriously. But I myself have always thought they were derivative problems in our context. Our not having a clean government, our not paying officials right, and our not punishing wrongdoers themselves owe to deeper problems, whose solutions Singapore also points to.
The first of these problems is a lack of sense of country. I've talked about this repeatedly. Corruption does happen in other countries. Indonesia has the dubious honor of having had a leader, Suharto, who topped Transparency International's list of most corrupt tyrants in the world (Ferdinand Marcos was only second). We keep envying Singapore for its ironfisted rule. Well, Thailand too has progressed by leaps and bounds and it isn't ruled by an iron fist. What Singapore and Thailand simply have in common are people who would not dream of being citizens of a country other than Singapore and Thailand.
The second I've also talked about repeatedly. Corruption riots because we do not have a sense of taxpayers' money. The money we give in taxes we regard as tribute or “balato,” something we part with grudgingly, never expecting them to come back in roads, bridges and services. We rough up pickpockets in the streets because we regard what they do as stealing. We don't do the same thing to public officials because we regard what they do as ROI, a return on (campaign) investment.
And finally, a sense of pride. Over the past several months, I've gotten a lot of irate mail from Filipinos demanding to know what I've got against nurses and caregivers. It's perfectly respectable work, why do I keep putting it down? My answer to this is that I'm not. I'm not putting down nurses and caregivers, I'm putting down the attitude that we can only be a nation of nurses and caregivers. An attitude to be found in our doctors agreeing to become so abroad, and in our educational system, which is being geared to produce an army of nurses and caregivers. We used to be second only to Japan in economic potential in the 1950s. Have we fallen so low?
Contrast that with the attitude of Singaporeans that says anything you can do, I can do better. You may find that attitude a little arrogant, but it's the kind of attitude that makes Singapore Airlines one of the best in the world, and that makes airline personnel chase after you when you've left something at the airport. I personally experienced the latter, while in a state of utter absentmindedness, and this wasn't after 9/11 either. They take pride in honesty. You do not become world-class by having the mentality of a parochial. You do not join the guests at the table by having the mentality of a servant.
Some secrets are not really that hard to fathom.
posted by Dante at 2:23 PM
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