BRITISH academic John Aldair is correct when he said: “A thing is not right because we do it. A method is not good because we use it.” I’ve tested this belief once again when I personally worked on the renewal of my company’s business registration with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).

You know me. I practice management by wandering around to get the best possible information. And like my idol, Art Buchwald (1925-2007), my rule of thumb is that “the news is not where the news is, but where they are.”

Generally, you don’t have to worry about sharks at DTI, because there’s none except that there are things that we need to test, if it knows what it is trying to do at least in the case of business registration. Here’s the summary of my conversation with DTI Area Director Emma Asusano last October 30 in her office along Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City:

DTI: You can’t renew your business registration because it’s not yet due.

ME: My license will expire tomorrow, October 31, 2012. What’s the difference?

DTI: Our computer system will not allow it.

ME: But why? (I was trying to practice asking the five Whys.)

DTI: (Long silence). It’s one of the basic requirements of our rules.

ME: But why do you have that requirement under the rules?

DTI: (Digression alert). Some people have already complained against it in the past.

ME: Let me repeat myself. Why do you have that rule in the first place?

DTI: If you have a complaint, please put it down in writing.

ME: That’s one extra burden for me. Besides, if I write it down, it will be more toxic than usual.

DTI: OK, please give me your e-mail address, and we’ll respond to you in due time.

ME: Here’s my business card. But what is “due time?”

DTI: We’ll check with the head office and give you an answer as soon as we can.

After close to two weeks now, I’m constrained to wait for a decent reply. Does it mean that DTI can’t move fast enough to answer a basic question? I can’t believe they don’t know what they’re doing in the first place. Imagine upholding a policy for decades without knowing the rationale behind it! I’ve done the renewal of my driver’s license on my birth month and the registration of my vehicles weeks before their expiration, and I don’t think the head of those agencies have committed plunder or any crime worthy of a death sentence for allowing me to be a law-abiding and eager-beaver registrant.

Maybe we could come up with a system for tracking down stupid government rules. As a college educator teaching quality and productivity improvement, I believe it is my sworn task to walk the talk. That’s why I took DTI to this challenge because it is the program administrator of the Philippine Quality Award (PQA), the country’s highest national recognition for business excellence—aggressively promoted as the worthy equivalent of the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award of the US.

Among other issues, how could DTI assess its own policies and procedures even with the watered-down version of the PQA, called the Philippine Quality Challenge (PQC)? How does it handle feedback and complaints from customers? How does it manage data and information available to ensure accuracy, integrity, timeliness and confidentiality? How does it design, manage and improve its support processes?

Impossible, though it may sound—my hypothesis is this: There are many stupid rules out there being implemented by robotic bureaucrats. I think there should be a law requiring government agencies to include a warning posted right on its door, similar to what the Surgeon General has on cigarette packs: “Warning: Our policies and procedures are being implemented for a reason. If you can find anything wrong with them, including the lack of qualifications of our officials and employees, then please forgive us for causing you any emotional trauma associated in dealing with our agency, as we’ve being practising it since time immemorial. Unfortunately, we don’t know why.”

I hope that even with a reactive change, DTI could see the light that the PQA or even the PQC should start from within. You know what I mean. DTI and some government agencies can post their standard operating procedures on their office walls and doors where people can see them, but they must not appear oblivious to the fact that they need at least 237 proctologists to examine their thought processes.

Rey Elbo is a business consultant specializing in human resources and total quality management as a fused interest. Send feedback to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter for his random management thoughts.