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YESTERDAY The Times ran a photo a P172-million flyover project in
Baguio that “the President, Highways Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane
and officialdom,” according to Baguio Rep. Mauricio Domogan, were
supposed to have inaugurated on January 17 but didn’t.
Neither the President nor Secretary Ebdane
showed up to inaugurate the flyover. And the local authorities
decided not to open it to the public—even if it was ready for use.
This starkly contrasts with what happened in
India recently.
“Who cuts the ribbon?” The Times of India
asked in an editorial. “This should be an unimportant question in
a republic. But not in ours. Even crucial civic facilities are kept
out of bounds for the public until VIPs inaugurate these.
“However, it appears that the people are no
more willing to wait for VIPs. On Wednesday, a few citizens
inaugurated a flyover in Noida and they were inspired by similar
public action in Palam in New Delhi.
“… Noida officials took the cue from the
people and allowed traffic on the road. The latter have also said
they would soon open another stretch of the road in the area without
any formal inauguration. Similar civic activism has been reported
from other parts of the country.
“These may be minor acts of resistance to a
political culture that has created the VIP species and endowed it
with special privileges, but they indicate a trend. People are tired
of making way for the red lights and blue lights that scurry past
during peak traffic hours.”
People are still around whose idea of India is
of 1950s vintage—when Calcutta was known to be a city with a large
population of beggars and Gunnar Myrdal was still using India for
his tome on The Poverty of Nations. This story should convince them
that India has become more modern than the Philippines. It makes jet
planes, cars, trains and apple juice, and everything America and
China makes. And that is why it is even on top of us in the call
center business and now supplies more doctors to the United States
than we do.
The Times of India editorial ends with
thoughts Filipinos should have. “The VIP is a throwback to a
feudal era when people were mere subjects of the ruler. Our fetish
for VIP inaugurations is reminiscent of the pomp and vanities of
feudalism. Mature democracies have long done away with such
inaugurations unless of course they are path-breaking ventures.
“Roads and flyovers are part of basic
infrastructure, even though decades of shoddy governance make these
look like special gifts from the government. The real VIP in a
democracy is the citizen. The job of the public servant is to ensure
that he is not kept waiting.”
Multiraciality in Malaysia
What I miss about working as an editor in Hong
Kong and Singapore is the feel of the multiracial society. Hong
Kong’s expatriate community is a kaleidoscope of Brits, Aussies,
Asians, Europeans, North Americans and Latin-Americans.
KL, as multiracial as Singapore, but with the
numerical positions of the Malays and Chinese reversed, is another
place I love.
The Malaysian authorities have been trying to
improve its civil service, which is not as great as that of
Singapore’s but is much better than ours.
Malaysia’s affirmative-action bumiputra (son
of the soil) policy has led to the civil service being dominated by
Malays.
The New Straits Times editorial “A test of
diversity” says:
“To attract and retain the best, the
government will be ‘color-blind’ and ‘gender-blind’ when it
comes to recruiting civil servants, said Chief Secretary to the
Government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan. Given that there is a
perception that admissions and promotions in the civil service have
not been based solely on qualifications and accomplishments, the
assurance that candidates will be selected on ability is to be
welcomed.
“However, given the fact that the most
ambitious tend to go into the private sector because that’s where
the money, prestige and status seem to be, this may not appear to be
a sufficient condition to lure the brightest into the public
sector… But Sidek’s move to meritocracy is a step in the right
direction.
“…While more and more women have broken the
glass ceiling, fewer and fewer Chinese, Indians, and other groups
seem to figure in the civil service….
“….If diversity is to be truly a goal of
government employment, the chief secretary can’t do it alone. It
requires a deep commitment from top to bottom. Even then, it could
be some time before the civil service becomes more representative.
But it is a goal that is worth working towards because
multiracialism is a litmus test in our progress as a nation.”
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