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A congressional inquiry is all set to unmask the
tangled story of greed and evil plotting that is allegedly behind
the break-up of the partnership that won the P7.2-billion automation
contract for the 2010 election. The truth will come out here—a
clear picture of it at the very least.
With a determined agenda to get
into the bottom of things, specifically why two IT providers (Total
Information Management Corp. and Smartmatic) are breaking up their
partnership after winning a big contract, the House of
Representatives cannot but help clear the issues. Flaws and all,
Filipino congressmen rank number one in the region in investigative
skills, their expertise at inquiry honed by years of practice in
this messy, lurid aspect of congressional work—plus the natural
inclination for it.
After the House inquiry is over,
few skeletons will be left hidden. By then, we will have a full
story on the why, how and who. And why one of the two corporations
in the partnership, TIM Corp., is suddenly and mysteriously backing
out of a huge, huge contract. Philippine companies usually give up
their legs and limbs to get government contracts and here is TIM
doing the unheard-of-thing.
In the meantime, let us look at
some of the reasons why huge IT contracts, especially those coming
out of state-awarded contracts (Comelec automation, NBN-ZTE deal),
are almost always tainted with fraud and irregularity. Or are flawed
from the start.
The biggest reason is this: the
Philippine IT business, especially the field of service providing,
is not being run by the Andy Groves-Sergey Brin–Steve Jobs types.
It is dominated by salespeople and marketing men.
Look at the officers’ directory
of both the TIM Corp. and Smartmatic. It is clear they are not
companies run by technology pioneers but by hawkers and salesmen. In
fact, Jose Mari Atuñez, the head of the TIM, the man the
congressmen want to grill and rake over coals, is not a technology
pioneer but a marketing man.
I have nothing against salesmen
and marketing people. In fact, I only have great admiration for
them. The world will be less colorful without their types. Their
spiels could put you under their spell—making you to buy the
goods, services and products they hawk.
There is nothing more contrived
and scripted than the market pitch. But, we have to admit, only a
special type of people can write and deliver them.
But there is something
fundamentally wrong when IT companies are founded and operated by
marketing people, which is the case in our sorry Philippine context.
Because the focus is on, devoted to, the spin and on the product
pitch, not on technological edge and innovation. Every IT service
should be anchored on technological integrity, the fusion of
logarithm and technical savvy and marketing men often overlook this.
So, while these marketing men can offer IT services and products
rich in hype and overwhelming on the marketing side, these may be
flawed technologically and this is a very dangerous thing.
Garbage in, garbage out.
Recall that messy affair called
the NBN-ZTE scam. Then National Economic and Development Authority
chief Romulo Neri, whose training is economic planning, sought the
help of Jun Lozada, the then head of a state-run forestry
corporation, for help in evaluating the soundness of the ZTE
proposal. Lozada may be an electronics engineer by training but that
doesn’t mean he was capable of looking into the soundless of that
ambitious broadband network program. Lozada knew the IT jargon but
was clueless on hard core IT processes. Technically speaking, he was
unsuited for evaluating the ZTE proposal.
When the people tasked to
undertake giant and critical IT contracts are more hype and bluster
than highly-trained and deeply-grounded IT people, things tend to go
off-track and awry. This, essentially, was what happened with the
NBN-ZTE deal and the Comelec automation project.
Grove of Intel escaped from the
Nazi gas chambers as a boy via an impossible forest route in biting
winter that left him almost deaf. He arrived in the US without
knowing a word of English. After a few years, he graduated in
engineering at the top of his class at the City University of New
York—then started charting the trailblazing work in technology.
Intel is a story as fascinating and pioneering as the life of Grove.
Jobs? We are all familiar with
his story. Sporadic art classes at the Reed College in Oregon. Then
his total dedication to technological innovation that led to Apple.
But the part of his life that I love most was his reported courtship
of Joan Baez, who sang “Song for David” and “Swing Low, Sweet
Chariot” during the Woodstock festival of rain, songs and protest.
And here, in our sad country, the
IT people are marketing men adept at the pitch but with no
creativity, talent and authenticity. No wonder, all major IT
projects go awry. 
mvrong@yahoo.com
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