5 crazy ideas to make the Philippines better

Our country is struggling.

Not because we lack the resources, but we lack the discipline and our leaders’ commitment.

Here’s my two cents: 5 crazy ideas to make the Philippines a better nation.

1. Remove Sangguniang Kabataan (SK)

It’s not value-adding. It’s just another outlet for corruption.

And we’re just creating a breeding place for new sets of corrupt officials.

Why do I say this?

Well, what happened to the past election?

Wait, someone’s sneezing, “Achoooo… vote buying!“

Wait, you don’t agree to this proposal?

Why, because you won’t be able to play a basketball league anymore?

Don’t worry, all of its functions can be absorbed by the Barangay Captain.

And please don’t tell me he’s got a lot of things on his plate already. Come on.

2. Full Transparency

This should be compulsory.

All barangays, cities, government agencies and even our country have to post ALL their projects online.

Either on a website or on social media, it doesn’t matter, as long as it is publicly visible.

What’s important is that it has these 6 things:

1. what their projects are
2. who is responsible (the project owner)
3. how their projects can help the people
4. the planned budget
5. approved budget
6. target completion (month and year)

Now compare these with the actual results.

Was the project even started? Did they exceed the budget?

Did they finish it on time? If not, why?

And finally, it should be audited by a third party organization.

Financials should be accounted: the budget and the revenue (or benefit) it brings.

This would be exciting.

We’d know outright who’s working and those who are not.

This would serve as Public Officials’ Report Card (PORC).

The new definition of PORC Barrel should be: a repository of all the public officials’ projects and actual results.

All our questions like “Nagtatrabaho ba si Mayor Pogi?” could be answered directly.

We can just visit the website (or social media page) and check the status of his project.

And soon we would hear comments like, “Bakit ang bagong daan sa Brgy Marupok bitak-bitak na?”

3. Raise the bar for public officials’ qualifications

If you haven’t graduated at least a bachelor’s degree in college, why do you think you could lead your city, or your country?

How do you even manage your projects? Or do you even know what a project is?

4. Stop the 4Ps

Instead of giving them the fish, how about teaching them how to fish?

Teaching them how to make money, e.g. livelihood programs like sari-sari stores, livestock raising, farming, or even freelancing is better than giving them the money directly.

Let’s give them the skills to pay the bills.

Please STOP giving them paper bills to pay the bills.

5. Make public officials accountable

Sa China, if may public official na guilty of corruption, pwede siyang mahatulan ng death penalty.

It’s true. Read the source here.

But we don’t have to do this. Seriously.

We just need them to commit to projects that they’re going to do. Not just a lip service.

Madali lang sabihin…

A simple Objectives and Key Results (OKR) would suffice.

State the objective of the project.

What do you want to do? What do you seek to improve? What do you want to achieve?

But please, let’s forget about the if-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it mentality.

We’ve learned so much already from typhoon incidents.

We don’t want another victims to fix issues.

If they couldn’t deliver their projects to their constituents, what would be the penalty?

It’s the ombudsman’s call.

With all of these, those who are eager to earn a post in a public office would think twice before investing their money in pamphlets, stickers and t-shirts during elections.

What do you think?