Retired investment banker Leo Alejandrino makes very good points about missed opportunities owing to our leaders aversion to change. This is what I have been harping on also in several tweet threads in the past. We’re about to waste another opportunity to institutionalize radical change as a result of the disruption caused by the pandemic by doing more of the same.
Why are our leaders so change-adverse and risk-adverse? It’s actually due more to the fact that the status quo benefits them the most. The opposition goes on and on about the mistakes of the administration but they themselves can’t offer any innovative solutions. Leni Robredo thinks she’s an excellent executive but truth to be told she’s not. None of the projects which the Office of the Vice-President came up with at the height of the pandemic were scaleable. They were just palliative measures designed to enhance the image of the Vice-President to the public as the Busy Presidente.
So far, no Presidentiable has put forward a platform that adopts and details technology-based innovation. Only Sen. Ping Lacson has used “digitization” as a buzz word. The digitization of the government bureaucracy is a huge challenge. The only applicable technology which satisfies the requirements for such a task is blockchain. The other challenge is what are you going to do with the rank-and-file who will be displaced by automation? But as the cliche’ goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Until we have a leader who isn’t change and risk-adverse, we will never be at par with our regional neighbors, at least.
As Alejandrino points out, our economic growth is largely attributable to low-hanging fruit. The pandemic exposed its weakness. We don’t have an export-manufacturing based economy but a consumption-driven one. Moving forward in the new normal requires both the public and the private sector to be resilient to the exigencies of the pandemic; to the point that the new normal is the pandemic is endemic.
Even the youngest Presidentiable, Isko Moreno, doesn’t have the intellectual wherewithal for this challenge despite Lito Banayo describing his brain as akin to sponge. There are also thin sponges in the market and you don’t feel comfortable when he makes a statement that he deals with “prototypes.”
There is a lot of benefits to be derived from being an agent of change and innovation. Unfortunately, the leadership talent pool is equivalent to a dry well. The present roster of candidates is similar to a desert with a plethora of mirages. It is all false hope.
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