BY IKE SEÑERES
THE general membership of the Corinthian Coffee Clutch (C3) has unanimously approved my proposal to adopt “Empowerment of Government” as our overall encompassing framework that will guide everything that we will do and say.
C3 is a private think tank for nation building based at the Corinthian Plaza Building (inside the Elks Club) in Makati City, and we are now going on the third year of our existence. As an organization, we do not sponsor any projects. What we do instead is to support the projects of our members, so that these could be put to good use for the benefit of nation building.
The projects of C3 members would generally be in the form of technologies that could be used either by the National Government Agencies (NGAs) or by the Local Government Units (LGUs). More often than not, the NGAs or LGUs would either be the clients or the co-sponsors of the activities or events that would be born out of these technologies. That is the reason why I proposed “Empowerment of Government” as our framework, because that is what we are actually doing, we are empowering government through our technologies.
It has been very clear from the time that we first started that we are not a political group and it is not our purpose to attack or criticize the government. It is also very clear to us that since our purpose is nation building, we should therefore build, and not destroy.
Of course, we understand that political activism is also important, but we are one in understanding that political activism is not for us to do, because that is not the purpose of our organization. Our purpose instead is to build our nation by way of technological innovations that would result in economic development.
Because of the inherent nature of their roles and functions, NGAs and LGUs are actually in effect the conduits of development programs and projects.
Aside from funds that are coming from the General Appropriations Act (GAA) in the form of line item budgets and Internal Revenue Allocations (IRAs), there are also funds that are coming from International Development Agencies (IDAs) and International Non-Government Organizations (INGOs) that are also intended for development programs and projects. That is not all, because there are also other funds that are coming from Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Public and Private Partnership (PPP) programs.
Aside from their IRAs, many of the LGUs are also recipients of Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF), not counting the special fund insertions that are requested by some legislators, passing through one or more non-government organizations (NGOs).
All told, there appears to be no shortage of money for development funding and what seems to be lacking instead is good planning and good governance. This is where the “Empowerment of Government” could come in, to provide NGAs and LGUs with the proper supports towards these ends.
The concept of “Empowerment of Government” is not actually new; in fact I have been doing this before in my official capacity as an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the National Computer Center (NCC).
The formula is the same, to empower NGAs and LGUs by providing them with technologies and other support mechanisms that would in turn enable them to deliver programs and projects to their constituents. Moving on now, in my private capacity, I could now continue to do the same thing, by way of the C3 and the other NGOs where I am involved.
Notwithstanding the availability of development funds, many NGAs and LGUs are still hard pressed in their operating budgets, especially when it comes to investments in their Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure.
Fortunately, there are many ICT products and services that are now available through fee based methods, also known as “pay as you go”. More often than not, these fee based products and services would not require public bidding, because the NGAs and LGUs are not really buying anything, meaning that the users are the ones paying, and not the government.
New developments in the ICT field have now made it possible for providers to offer their products and services to NGAs and LGUs at much lower costs and more flexible payment terms. Among these developments are cloud computing, big data, server virtualization and storage scalability. NGAs and LGUs that could not afford before to put up their own data centers and computer networks could now improve their ICT systems through “hardware as a service” (HAAS) and “software as a service” (SAAS) offerings, usually in the form of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) agreements.
Aside from ICT, the NGAs and LGUs could be empowered to improve or strengthen their programs for other sectors such as Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), Out of School Youth (OSY), People with Disabilities (PWDs), Indigenous Cultural Minorities (ICMs), Urban Poor Migrants (UPMs) and Small and Medium Entrepreneurs (SMEs).
More than anything else, the best way to start helping these sectors is to create databases of these people, as a way of recording who they are, where they are and what their needs are. As may be necessary, there may be a need to issue them their identification cards.
I think that the term Indigenous Cultural Minorities (ICMs) is more appropriate than the current term Indigenous Peoples (IPs) because the latter does not reflect the fact that they are cultural minorities and as such, they should be given more attention.
I also think that the term Urban Poor Migrants (UPMs) is more descriptive, because upon closer analysis, we will find out that most of the urban poor people are actually migrants, which explains the fact why they do not have permanent jobs and dwellings.
I prefer the sectoral approach because it is people oriented, meaning that the beneficiaries of the development programs and projects are clearly identified. Hard infrastructure projects are good because these would benefit everyone, but it is always good to balance hard infrastructure projects with people oriented soft projects, to make sure that marginalized sectors would benefit from the fruits of development. (Email bantaygobyerno- subscribe@yahoogroups.com or text +639083159262)/PN
