A governance approach to rightsizing

I WAS a personnel specialist at the Civil Service Commission when the Marcos dictatorship ended in 1986. Several months after the Cory Aquino-led opposition wrested political power, I resigned.

The Cory government took bold steps to govern. It abolished bunches of government corporations — most of which were deemed serving more for patronage rather than the public welfare. It replaced elected local government officials — deemed as freeloaders on account of their extended term limits — with appointed interim officials. It offered early retirement incentives to downsize a bloated bureaucracy.