Politics of Hope, Political Will

For once, we ask our political leaders to think something productive for our country. With all these investigations left and right, from the Senate to Congress, our leaders became experts in investigations and the practice of law in front of national televisions, whose viewing statistics rivaled, if not, outnumbered the most popular soap shows on primetime tv.

Our political leaders are quick in conducting all these hearings in aid of legislation, but have they really took some real efforts in making sure all these grafts and scams can be avoided, if not eliminated in the future? So much has been done on ‘reactive, firefighting’ politics of hate, but no true programs were done to implement systems and procedures to prevent re-occurrence of such corrupt practices.

As outlined in my rebellious blog at blogrebel, this country needs real, pro-active solutions to rid the bureaucracy of anomalous deals and contracts. We need a true, globally accepted ‘Procurement’ system powered by Information technology. Smaller companies spend millions of dollars to automate and upgrade their Purchasing departments, to benefit from what Information Technology can give – automate, track, and streamline procurement processes to help in reducing costs, eliminate incidence of fraud and maximizing the investments made in these purchases. The government, which is a hundred times bigger than these corporations, need this even more.

A true IT-enabled procurement system (Oracle, SAP, etc.) not only automates procurement functions, but also aligns all purchasing processes with the globally-accepted standard practices. A constant health-check of these processes, even after the system is implemented provides a continuous path to improvement, taking out unnecessary activities and ensure all tasks are aligned with the set policies and rules.

Instead of spending too much money in hearings and investigations, why not focus on this undertaking? The Senate (and Congress in general) can very well serve the Filipinos by putting safeguards and processes on the most critical (and most graft-ridden) function of the government, Procurement/Purchasing. Without a truly, globally certified and compliant Procurement system and processes, we cannot see the day where all deals and contracts in the government are perceived to be fair, and honest.

Next stop – IT solution for the automation of election. It is barely two years before the next presidential election, but we still don’t have any word about getting the election automated. Is there any effort at all from our Political leaders? NONE! They are also investigating the alleged anomalous deals in the procurement of more than billion-peso equipments to supposedly automate the elections. Our government already paid the amount, but until now, we have not yet enjoyed even a single centavo from this contract. Another classic example on why our Politicians should implement a true IT-enabled procurement system in the first place.

And I am 101% sure that these will be the same politicians to cry being ‘CHEATED’ the day after the elections. So much time and money get wasted on things that don’t contribute to this nation’s productivity building. Its time for all Filipinos to rally not for ousting anyone from office – but to DEMAND from our Leaders real programs that we truly need NOW, not ten years from now.

There is still HOPE for our country.  Its all about politics of HOPE. True Political Will.