racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

Judging from the ton of comments on my post about the ZTE Broadband Deal I can say that students around the Philippines are not really into political and social issues. Why? Well, their schools ask them to make all sorts of projects, writeups and research papers on the topics that they’re probably sick of it.

And my post wasn’t even about the “ZTE Broadband deal” issue itself! Take a look and you’ll know what I mean.

Sure, I know a few things about the inner dealings of government. Romulo Neri had been my boss for a couple of years, after all, albeit not directly. And the department of NEDA I worked for before was tasked with reviewing projects and facilitating financing from foreign governments, China included. I can say the accusations of alleged corrupt practices are probable.

But that is not to say I know anything about the “ZTE Broadband deal” myself outside of what I hear or read from the news).

If you are interested in learning more about the “ZTE Broadband deal” as it is publicized in the media coverages of the ongoing Philippine Senate inquiry, you can refer to this post about the NBN ZTE Project on Yugatech.

To put it shortly, the project was for a concessional loan by the Chinese government for the procurement and setup of a broadband network by the Philippine government. And as Chinese loans usually go, one condition is that the Chinese government choose the supplier (which is counter to the Government Procurement Reform Act, which says such should be bid out by the Philippine government, but is legal under the ODA Law, as amended).

Now the issue here is not the legality of the method of procurement. As is usual with government procurement, the main issue is the accusations of the padding of the project cost to accommodate commissions and kickbacks, and the supposed involvement of people who are in power who have allegedly used their influence to benefit from the project.

There is a difference between what is moral and what is legal.

Now when they say “Moderate their greed,” It usually means “reduce the project cost to more rational or reasonable levels.” But then in Philippine governance, it may usually mean something else. And this very phrase has helped spark controversy the more.

Happy researching!

Some people do the stupidest things with information entrusted to them. Take this case for example. PTB contributor Arnold Gamboa discovered that a certain website purporting to belong to the Commission on Elections NCR (National Capital Region) has published the entire list of registrants for the region.

I think COMELEC made a terrible — make that stupid — mistake by publishing the personal information of thousands of NCR’s registered voters. Comelecncr.com — NOT .gov, take note (is this even sanctioned by the government?) is a partnership between a COMELEC official named Dir. Ferdinand Rafanan and San Miguel Corporation (yes, what does a multi-million peso company has to do with Philippine elections?).

Dir. Rafanan said the goal is transparency. Ok, sounds like a noble intention. But the big question is, does publishing someone’s name, registration number and home address over the internet where billions of people can access a violation of the right to privacy?

If I were a stalker (which I sometimes am), this makes for good resource material. I’d better save the entire list then on my hard drive, for future reference! Now more dangerously—if I had a grudge against someone but I didn’t know where he lived, I could check out the list. Or if I’m a politico, and I want to send out campaign materials via snail mail (a.ka. SPAM) to people, I could use this info. Or what if I run a business? I no longer have to buy address lists. I just check out the registrants list and I now have people’s full names, birth dates and home addresses.

Oh, and their web design sucks. Frames? Tables? Animated GIFs? Marquee text? Oh my God Looks like the site was made with MS Frontpage. Wait. It is!

2007 is mid-term election season here in the Philippines. Every three years, we get to elect local officials from lowest (barangay, or town) level up to national Senate level (senators have alternating six-year terms). And this is one of those years.

I wasn’t able to register as a voter—I have never done so in my entire life. Those who know me would probably recall that I prefer to be apolitical. I prefer to effect change through other means, and this is mostly because I’ve lost hope in the local political system. I’ve been part of government before, and I can say I had grown further disillusioned and disappointed with how things are run here.

But then again somehow I feel it’s time to make a change, especially with regard to helping our country’s political system grow. I’ve been observing politics in other countries—particularly in the West—and one thing I notice is that their political systems are mostly platform-based. They have strong party systems. In contrast, here in the Philippines politics is mostly personality-based. And we have a weak party system.

If in the US, Democrats stand for one thing and Republicans for another, here in the Philippines, most parties seem to give empty promises of poverty alleviation, job security and economic improvement, but there really is no solid, observable and viable platform. Or at least once people get elected, no one is sure if they ever follow through on their promises/platforms.

Sometimes I’m not sure whom to blame: the politicians or the electorate ourselves. After all, it’s the citizenry that elects people into positions of power.

So here’s my crazy idea

Political blogging is very popular in the west. In fact, a lot of blogs and bloggeres have grown to A-list status in election seasons by outing irregularities or helping out candidates.

As a blogger, I would like to do the same. But given that I do not identify myself with any party or candidate, I would like to invite candidates for this year’s elections (local or national) to collaborate with me on this endeavor.

The concept is simple. I (probably along with a handful of other bloggers) will be writing about candidates, their lives, their political parties, and their platforms during this campaign season. I still have to decide whether it will be on my personal blogs (which have better coverage and readership), or a new site altogether. Now this wouldn’t be the standard press-release like postings. We’ll do it as bloggers do—with honesty, candidness and straightforwardness (with a dash of our own insights, of course). This makes for good new media coverage, no?

But it doesn’t end there. If and once that candidate wins the election, I will continue blogging about his/her activities as an incumbent, and through this we will see if that candidate has indeed followed through on election platforms/promises.

So for instance, he’s a Senatorial candidate who has campaigned on the platform of job creation, the people will know if the committees he’s become part of, the bills he’s authored, and other decisions and activities, are part of improving the employment situation in the country. Or if a candidate for City Mayor runs on the platform of cleaning up the city government of corruption, we will see if his activities once elected would, indeed, reflect that platform.

I’m aware that several local organizations are already focusing on blogging about politics, such as PCIJ, but they’re approaching it from journalists’ perspectives (particularly investigative journalism), and of course there is a difference. I would rather approach it as a citizen. Okay, let me be the devil’s advocate here. Let’s assume that all people are good and that political candidates have their prospective constituents’ best interests in mind.

I’m all ears!

If you’re running for office, let me blog about you, and with you. You can get in touch with me directly here. And I’m hoping communication lines keep open, so I can continue to help with the transparency. After all, elected officials should be accountable to their constituents.

Is anyone willing to be part of this?

Image source

I’ve had it with petty bickerings in government and among politicians in this quaint little country of mine. People talk about big-time issues like constitutional change, corruption and the like, but people still seem to advance their own interests, while sacrificing the welfare of the rest of us in the process. This is why I choose to be apolitical. I’ve never voted in my entire life. Some might say I’m wasting the potentials of my vote. But what worth would that vote be if the supposed wisdom of the masses (which is the point of democracy) produces crappy leadership (and perhaps followership)?

And we know that crappy leadership causes instability in the economy, which causes us to remain poor, which causes people to have the tendency to make wrong decisions*, which causes us to choose crappy leaders.

Or at least the economist in me would say that.

*I have no bias against the poor, but I think to uplift one’s status in life, one has to think rich!

Employment, Underemployment, Unemployment

We are at 12% rate of unemployment and 20% of the workforce is underemployed.

We have a million people leaving the country each year to work overseas as nannies, caregivers and domestic helpers (most, though not all), when a lot of these people used to have knowledge-based work or at least white-collar work—as accountants, teachers, and the like—in the country. I have nothing against offering care to those who need it (hey, my kids need a nanny. Give me a buzz if you know someone!) or doing household work, which is also an honorable means to make a living. However, I just don’t feel it’s right to let one’s profession and skills atrophy just because the pay is better in nominal terms somewhere else.

They are considered modern-day heroes. They send in money from abroad in the form of remittances to their families here. They bolster our economy by contributing to the supply of foreign currency in circulation (which keeps the value of the Peso from falling, but that might be a concern for the export sector—but, alas, we digress).

But this is at the expense of family life. Imagine, mother and father leaving their kids under the care of relatives or other people just to make a decent living.

The other side of the coin is the trend of offshored businesseses coming into the country. Yes, it’s cool that foreign companies choose to outsource their transaction-based jobs here to us. There are the call centre agents, the medical transcriptionists, and the technical support people. There are also other white-collar undertakings such as accounting, software development and the like.

However, I still consider it to be unfair to the people involved, namely those who are employed in the BPO sector. My reason? It’s the companies that gain much of the benefit. Granted, they set up the infrastructure and they take on the overhead for operations. This emboldens them to take a big cut of the compensation pie. When American, British, or other European firms pay about $1,000 to $1,500 per month per call centre seat, the actual call centre agent only gets about PhP 15,000 to 20,000 (or $300 to 400) of that amount. Add to that the health issues brought about by having to work in shifts and having to change shifts every so often (which is a practice in the industry), then guess who’s on the losing end?

There must be another way.

My proposal

Here’s a simple proposal of mine.

I believe there is a good pool of talented people in the Philippines just waiting to be tapped. For instance, I write. And I know people who write really well (in fact, I’ve gone as far as hiring them to work with the company I’m involved with). I also know people who can develop great web apps and create Go Ogle worthy designs, whether on their own or under the guidance of foreign visionaries.

In fact this is what we do at Enthropia. Just one of the many things, actually. There are a handful of us here in the country (as well as in other Asian countries) working on our projects and we’re on a mobile/home-based working arrangement.

We basically render work for our North America-based mother entity (likewise a lean team) and they pay us for our services. Directly. And not having to pass through some big-ass company that will take a big chunk off our earnings.

We don’t have a glitzy office in Makati or Eastwood, nor do we plan to set one up anytime soon. We each pay for our own equipment and infrastructure. We feel this current arrangement of ours lets us be robust enough to accomplish what has to be done without all the administrative overhead.

Call it freelancing. Call it the informal sector. Call it the underground economy.

Other people probably aren’t aware of the possibility that one can work for foreign companies without passing through intermediaries (or middlemen) here, nor actually going abroad. And if they were, most of the time the hindrance would be the means by which money can be transmitted.

You can render a service and send whatever needs to be sent or done by email (or IM or SMS) but money’s a different thing altogether.

Yes, there are a handful of remittance services, but here’s the problem:

• They take a big cut
• They are not convenient

If only we had PayPal in the Philippines, then I think we would be able to open to the world better means to access to our pool of talent.

In the course of my freelance work as a writer/blogger I’ve had clients who paid via money transfer and it took days, and it was expensive. Xoom? It’s a good mid-way solution, but still not as convenient as having the real deal (PayPal). After all, they still get a cut, and the paying party still has to register for an account, where his PayPal details would then be keyed in.

There’s my simple thesis.

Having PayPal in the country would greatly benefit the following people:

• Web developers,
• Designers,
• Photographers,
• Writers,
• Pro-bloggers,

and virtually anyone else who can render services remotely while corresponding via the Internet. Their correspondents can pay simply by clicking a few buttons, and that’s it.

This would be a great opportunity for both sides, as it will open up access to the supply of good talent, and as well as open up access to those who are on the demand-side.

Who said perfect capital mobility should be impossible? In this day and age, where knowledge—or rather Knowledge with a capital K—is the foremost capital, mobility knows no geographic bounds!

However, PayPal won’t deal with us. It’s probably because we have a history of having potential for money laundering activities. Or maybe it’s because of poor security in banking or credit card transactions.

The point is that we have to lobby for inclusion as a PayPal enabled country.

If our Anti-Money Laundering Act is crappy, then we should lobby for a change for the better. If implementation is poor, then we should lobby for stricter enforcement.

Let’s work together!

I’ve had a talk with an esteemed gentleman from the country’s Liberal political family, and he’s very much interested with my idea. I know this is not an original idea of mine (the need for access to online financial transactions, namely PayPal), but probably other people haven’t brought it up to the level of actually trying to do something about it.

Here’s our chance. Let’s join forces, organize, and formalize so we can better forward our cause. I’m probably not the best person to mobilize people but I sure do have a lot of ideas.

Anyone wanna be involved in this?

Updates

Sites that link to this post, as of 2006-07-24 09:41H (darn trackbacks/pingbacks aren’t working).

• Crimson Crux (Phillip Kimpo)
• Pinoytechblog (c/o Arnold Gamboa)
• Random Takes (Migs Paraz)
• The Mike Abundo Effect (okay, Mike, is there really such a thing as a Mike Abundo Effect?)
• Snow World
• TechnoPinoy (Mon Abasolo)
• Captain’s Log (Jepoy Bengero)
• Alleba Blog (Andrew dela Serna)
• Touched by an Angel (Noemi Lardizabal-Dado)
• Bubbleheadnut’s Livejournal
• Bitstop Network Services blog
• Wonderful World of Jonas
• Yugatech: PayPal in the Philippines via Xoom (Abe Olandres)
• Babelmachine: Bloggers lobby for PayPal in the Philippines (Joey Alarilla)
• Planet Pinoy Biz & Jozzua. com (both by Jozzua)
• TechnoPinoy, again (Mon would rather not have PayPal )

In mainstream media (papers, blogs, etc.)

• CNet Asia: Bloggers lobby for PayPal in the Philippines (by Joey Alarilla)

Posted elsewhere:

• DIGG this story!
• ForeverGeek

Update, 2006-07-20 1500H: We’re setting up an advocacy site, www.paypal4ph.com. Right now, the site redirects to this blog post until we come up with something better. Credits to Jason for setting up the domain and hosting. Ia will be doing the logo, and Phillip would be helping me out with the writeups (the blurbs, taglines, etc.). I hope to be able to come up with a whitepaper of sorts, as Migs suggested in a comment below.

I’m taking a short break from blogging momentarily (and yes, I’ll be offline). A blogger can have writer’s (or blogger’s?) block, too, you know. And I need to catch up on my ZZZs. You may be wondering about the title, as this post’s dated Tuesday, the 16th. Well, let’s just say it’s not the 16th in all parts of the world yet—and my days usually extend well into after midnight, and my body and mind’s clock usually gets confused with this more-than-24-hour day setting (for instance, Sunday was an all-nighter—extending well into Monday).

In the meantime, let me direct you to a few blogs/writeups I find interesting (okay, some of which I’ve written):

• On bTelevisions, I write on my kid, the TV addict.
• Yuga has thoughts on disabling right-clicking (I agree—don’t!).
• Mon talks on social engineering (don’t fall victim to scams!).
• Mikey needs a health check.
• RM talks on the sustainability of regulation.
• Kira muses on beauty and fashion.
• Corsarius is in a void.
• Here’s Ia’s interesting site on, umm, interesting Web 2.0 names.

That’s about it for now. I’m signing off. Hope to see you in a few hours (of course, by the time you read this, I’ll probably be back already).