The phone call

Yesterday afternoon, I had quite a frustrating experience dealing with

the Philippine Bureaucracy.  I had somehow expected

exactly this to happen: that one day I will be at the receiving end of government’s inefficiencies in its transactions, as a private entity.  I was simply requesting, via phone, for copies of official documents that could have been easily relayed over the communication lines (i.e.,

via fax or email), but the bureaucrat I talked to preferred that I

appear personally to secure copies of the documents.  In NEDA, we used to seek written or even emailed requests for information, for our record purposes, but this is just too much!

Now I wonder if my timing was bad.  Did I call during one of their long breaks?  My correspondent seemed to have been in a hurry (coffee was getting cold?).

Come to think of it, I have been at the receiving end of government’s

ineffciencies even when I was part of the Bureaucracy

itself, both in personal and official transactions.  It’s just so

difficult to finish one’s work when your counterparts in government

agencies are not so willing to serve the public.  So I guess

nothing’s new.  But now I have a better reason to oppose this inefficiency: my time (and my company’s time) is worth gold!

Slaves to Redmond

A colleague was asking whether I found it easy to adjust to my new work

environment, in particular our preference for open-source

software.  I mentioned that the use of OSS is not new to me, but

it does not seem to be very popular among government offices, in my

experience.  Even NEDA,

which I consider to be in the higher rungs of the Philippine

Government’s technology ladder, seemed not too keen in adopting

open-source (sure, officials made statements, but seemed to be lacking

in actual practice and implementation-I only know of a handful of

former colleagues who actually use Linux boxes or even Firefox!). 

Proprietary ware is still the way to go for government.

And I have quite a striking observation on the matter: I noticed that government agencies seem to prefer branded desktop PCs over clones,

most, if not all of which, run on a Microsoft operating system variant,

and using Microsoft office software (as packaged/OEM).  And this applies also to most

projects or procurement contracts with the private sector.  Other

considerations aside, isn’t this quite an expensive option for a cash-strapped government? 

Branded PCs + Microsoft OS and software would cost about twice as much

as a clone with similar specs running on open-source ware.  If you

still prefer to use branded PCs, you could do away with the MS OS and

Office Suite and save about PhP 10,000 to 15,000 right (or

approximately US$ 200 to 300)?

Similarly, I don’t know how an agency would justify the implementation of a very expensive Oracle database system when other solutions such as mySQL can address the organization’s needs more than adequately.

Other Asian countries are officially advocating the use of OSS.  Why can’t we do this in practice?  Or does our government remain an administration of press releases?  DOST’s Advanced Science and Technology Institute (ASTI) released Bayanihan Linux

(a localized Linux distribution) a couple of years ago, but why are

government agencies slow to adopt the system?  When do we plan on

breaking free from the shackles of proprietary ware?

I doubt the veracity

of concerns on possible productivity losses and the need for training,

attributed to moving to OSS; did people lose productivity when they

moved from typerwiters to computers, or from mimeograph machines to

photocopiers?  The average technical and administrative bureaucrat

would only use his/her computer to churn out documents (multitudes of

documents), play around

with figures via spreadsheets, and perhaps browse the web (for sanity’s

sake). How much training would you need for that?  Most Linux

desktop environments are quite similar to that of Windows in many

respects.  Heck, Bayanihan Linux 3 claims to be able to run

Windows applications!

My colleague wondered if the President was aware of this inefficiency.  I wonder myself.

Resigned

I just got word that I am finally, finally, officially resigned from my Senior Economic Development Specialist post with NEDA, with an effectivity date of March 3.  I formally tendered my resignation on June 5 this year, where I indicated an effectivity date of February 21. 

After my having to circulate my clearance form to gather about twenty

signatures, the NEDA’s Administrative Staff finally got to route my

papers to the Office of the Director General for approval (after all,

government employees are not considered resigned unless the head of

agency formally states so).

That obstacle hurdled, my problem now is that my government salary had been put on hold

since first week of February.  I would have to wait for my

now-approved papers to be routed once again through various entities

(i.e. GSIS

for validation, and internally within NEDA) before I can finally get

that last paycheck and my share of GSIS contributions (which I had

withdrawn).

It will take ages, and I wish inflation does not render my last pay

worthless once I finally get it (hopefully within a month or two).

Therefore …

So here are three causes of government inefficiency (among others), to summarize:

• Unmotivated workforce -
  
  Personnel Services (PS) is a major component of government’s annual
  
  expenditure (eats up most of the budget); it’s about time to enhance
  
  the bureaucratic structure (i.e., streamline the organization and
  
  improve the pay).  By then, we can expect better and faster service.
  


• Unbridled expenditures – Proper audit on the use of public funds is very much needed.  We can save a lot if we avoid unnecessary costs.
  


• Slow flow of work and information
  – Hey, it’s the information age!  In the era of paperless offices,
  
  government still prefers to churn out gazillions of pages of documents
  
  and work on mountains of paperwork.  The work never ends!

A fourth is corruption, but I think we can be spared the gory details for

now.  Perhaps you may wish to refer to the PCIJ website for quite a number of reports/articles on the topic.

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