|
I WELL remember on my first trip to Russia back in about 1986 being
“impressed” by how dirty the windows were, it looked as if they
had never been cleaned. Again in Vietnam at Tan Son Nhut airport
Saigon, the windows were filthy. It wasn’t just the windows, of
course, everywhere appeared to be suffering from a lack of regular
cleaning; carpets, furniture, walls and of course the windows! Why
was this? It wasn’t lack of unskilled labor, plenty of people
around with not enough to do. I suspect it just wasn’t considered
important to keep places clean. Shades of Mao Tse Tung
here—“every copper should be saved for the war effort, for the
revolutionary cause and for economic reconstruction”—spending
time and effort on maintenance and cleaning would clearly have been
considered as petty bourgeois and not of any priority at all. So we
can to some degree get an explanation for the shoddiness of some of
the (ex) communist countries. But some aspect of the Philippines are
also shoddy in appearance—there are lots of very dirty windows (!)
lots of trucks that look to be unsafe to be on the road, and as for
the buses and some of the other vehicles; they look appalling. Many
government (and private sector) offices are dim, dingy and
dirty—they don’t really need to be paint is cheap, labor is
cheap and jobs are scarce.
It seems that maintenance and
preventative maintenance at that, is not high on the priority list
of many people in the Philippines. The overwhelming impression
gained by my household helper on trips with the family to the UK is
of the cleanliness (and the UK does not have a Nordic level of
general cleanliness)—roads are generally smooth and well
maintained, there is no comparison with the average appearance and
quality of vehicles on the road between Philippines and UK (buses
and trucks in particular). Living in the south of Metro Manila as I
do and traveling frequently on the very expensive South Luzon
“Expressway” I can almost guarantee that at some point between
Filinvest and Makati there will be at least one broken down vehicle
on any trip at any time, frequently because a wheel has fallen off!
If a wheel comes off your vehicle on an important journey and on a
major road, then much inconvenience and expense is involved in
sorting out the problem—perhaps better to ensure that a wheel is
not going to fall off before the journey is made? It seems to me
that people just run things into the ground around here, not only
vehicles but buildings and equipment as well—preventative
maintenance has obviously yet to catch on. Of course, if vehicles
which are un-roadworthy were prevented from using the roads then
this could stimulate the necessary forward planning, but alas this
is not a straightforward matter—much effort seems to be put into
ensuring that vehicle emissions are regularly checked, such a pity
that they don’t seem to bother checking degrees of rusting and
general decrepitude. The cynic may say that a decrepit vehicle is a
license to put money into somebody’s pocket.
It is not an excuse for
shoddiness that the Philippines is a less developed country. There
are examples around of developed country quality, it just seems that
in general it is more expedient to actually run tings into the
ground than to carry out proper maintenance work and keep the place
in good order. I have heard that there has been criticism of some of
the fittings and furniture in Makati City Hall—better quality
items, well maintained last longer and cost less in the long
run—apart for the fact that they give an appearance of being
“open for business and investment.” Lets not always go for the
cheapest (second or third hand) item, they cost more in the long
run, particularly when the wheels fall off, go for some bright shiny
good quality items and spend the time and effort looking after them;
not only will this save money it will make foreign investors feel
more at home.
Mike can be contacted at
mawootton@gmail.com
|
