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... rco's as they are mere ext envious in the implementation of the IAD programs. Though the IAD approach became less prominent as its funding from the WB has been consumed, the concept is still being used in various forms. The Social Reform Agenda (SRA) of the Ramos administration is intended to showcase the coordinative efforts of all sectors of government to alleviate the situation in the so called Club 20 or the Low-Income Provinces. However, reports of its implementation has not shown qualitative difference in the lives of the poor in these areas. Up to now, the SRA remains an exercise of putting together in documents the spare amounts of each department of government to create an impression of priority.
The decision to include all provinces as SRA areas only highlights the fact that the entire country is in miserable situation and thus safety net measures has to be undertaken nationwide. Other forms of this approach are the Key Production Areas (KPAs) of the Philippine Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Agrarian Reform Communities (ARCs) of the Philippine Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) both of which are failures because of its orientation towards more intervention by the private sectors more specially the foreign investors in the agricultural sector. The chronic crisis f or staple food is the result of the government's policies to reduced the land hectarage for rice and corn production to allow the conversion of agricultural lands to other uses in order to exempt them from agrarian reform and the importation of agriculture a l products. On the other hand, areas which have been covered by the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Law (CARL) are being subjected to joint ventures with previous land owners and foreign investors thereby making the beneficiaries as mere workers of these en terrines after all. Its pattern of multi sectoral orientation and advocacy remain a readily available mechanism for the Aquino and Ramos administrations to family attain specific objectives or to even just project control when the people express their did ust over the chaos of their daily lives. The proliferation of inter-agency committees and task forces is a variation of this approach.
President Ramos conveniently creates layers and layers of presidential committees and task forces whenever he desires to be in full control of almost any concern more specially if there is a perceived opposition to it. A temporary body under his control thru his closest lackeys is an instant solution to the attainment of the agenda of his clique. Privatization of Public Estates The public estate system is supposed to rationalize the production and delivery of public goods thru the use of Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations (Goccs). Conceptually, it is intended to ensure the availability of basic services to every Filipino household. Over the years however, these Goccs failed to live up to the expectations due to large scale inefficiencies, exorbitant expenditures, massive losses and huge foreign debts (Brings and Zone 1975: 175). The reasons for the low performance e of the Goccs is not different and independent of the entire malaise that has long afflicted the bureaucracy -- the division of the spoils.
After serving as milking cows for the bureaucrat capitalists, the sale of these Goccs is being undertaken to stock e another deal for their take. The plan to privatize came in 1989 as an offshoot of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) of the IMF-World Bank for the Philippines. This include austerity measures to curve the deficit spending's of government due to the automatic allocation of almost half of its national budget to the payment of public debts. As the foreign debt payments and mis prioritization for national defense fund increased, the subsidy for social services is further pushed to less importance. But pr ivatization is not a mere administrative reform measure. The policy of government to allow the super profit orientation of the private sector to control and manipulate the affordability of even the most basic needs for food, power generation, potable wate r, education, shelter, and health services is definitely a change for the worst of the orientation of the government.
What it cannot effectively and efficiently provide to the people due to mismanagement is thus being taken away completely for the ultimate goal for super profits Participative Delivery System The latest approach is the supposed participation of program beneficiaries or Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in the implementation of programs and services of government. Although the dictators hip of President Marcos had his own scheme of things along this line, the use of NGOs was popularized during the Aquino administration. The liberal facade of President Aquino included the involvement of personalities and organizations that fought the dar k days of Marcos. However, as Aquino hurriedly turned to show the true color of her government as the worse continuation of her predecessors, the genuine organizations of the people distanced from her regime.
Then came the mushrooming of their own NGOs in tens of thousands which were shamelessly named in the relatives of the Aquino clique and received billions of pesos for the implementation of government projects. Some cooperatives were even showcased for poverty alleviation projects and the rebel return ee livelihood programs wherein huge portions had remained unaccounted for. Likewise, for the politicians, the use of NGOs simplified the utilization of billions of their Countrywide Development Fund (CDFs) and Congressional Initiative Allocations (Cia's). M ore often than not, senators and congressmen simply submit to the appropriate executive office the list of their organizations as recipients of funds. The Heads of Offices willingly submit in exchange for their own request for allocation from the Congress and escape any inquiry on their own wrongdoings or favors for appointments. It is, as a matter of fact, another scheme of the division of spoils.
Further, the Ramos administration extended the utility of the NGOs in his facade for participative governance or people empowerment. He has this fashion for the holding of summits on almost every concern whereby he easily passes the adoption of policies and programs with the participation of the leaders of organizations who expect and continue to receive their sh a re of the spoils. People empowerment is increasing the number of people's organizations which readily endorses and participate in the adoption of Ramos' policies and programs and even implements with them safety net measures to caution the detrimental eff ects to the Filipino people. III. A NEW PARADIGM OF GOVERNANCE The Ramos administration is hell-bent in overhauling the bureaucracy. His record of reducing its size by over 300, 000 civil servants, appointing the most number, compared to his predecessors, of his former colleagues in the military to top government civilian posts, and declaring as priority bill the re-engineering of the bureaucracy are good enough signals that he means to accomplish this particular agenda.
The pat on the shoulder that he g ets from the IMF-World Bank for this is an inspirational indication that his government is in the "right" direction. Philippines 2000 is the top most agenda of this regime and it needs a government that will effectively pursue this vision. A vision that pro mises hope that progress and development is possible within the framework of imperialist exploitation much more its intensification whereby completely subjugating the interests of the Filipino people. The Ramos government has already accomplished a lot along the thrusts of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization.
The list includes the following: RA 8180 or Downstream Deregulation of the Oil Industry Act of 1995 which left the complete control of the oil industry to few foreign monopoly oil companies; RA 7942 or Mining Act of 1995 which opened about 25 % of the land area of the Philippines to the exploitation of foreign investors; Import Liberalization Act which allowed entry of all types of imported goods; Foreign Investment Act which allowed 100 % capitalization by foreign companies; Bank Liberalization Act for the entry of more foreign banks; Land Lease Act; Agricultural Tariffication Act; Retail Trade Act; Comprehensive Tax Reform Package (CTRP); Power Crisis Act; Water Crisis Act and the privatize tion of PETRON (State oil company), Philippine National Bank (PNB) which are among the high performing Goccs of government. The privatization of Goccs that are engaged in the production and delivery of social services such as power generation, potable wa ter, transportation, health care, education and the staple food, have direct effects on the availability of these to the majority of the Filipinos as the question of affordability comes into fore. While the motivation of the investors is to maximize super profits from the income level, purchasing power, much more the employment scenario is not improving for the majority much more to mention that over 50 % of the Filipinos are living a destitute life. Surely, so much has been done but President Ramos wants to do more so that he will sponsor in the APEC meeting in the Philippines the acceleration of the liberalization of the economies in Asia-Pacific.
This comprises 71 % of the world market despite the sentiments from other Asian countries for gradual ization i n consideration of the possible reprisal from their own people whose sufferings are being aggravated. On the contrary, the Ramos regime is unfazed by the growing people's actions as reaction to the early signs of the detrimental effects of the initial pha se of intensified exploitation of the natural wealth and the people. Part of the prescription is a new paradigm of governance that will result to a bureaucracy that is best fit both toward policy-implementation and the thwarting of dissenting people's movement. The new paradigm of governance is a government that limits its role to allow the maximum participation of private initiatives. By way of more private intervention is mainly increasing the contact between government activities and private businesses thru contracts whereby multiplying the sources of graft and corruption. Corollarily, reducing the concerns of government gives the Ramos clique more room to manipulate the national budget towards foreign debt payments, strengthening of the military as it s main fascist machinery, multi-billion choice projects of the Office of the President, and the Countryside Development Funds (CDF) and Congressional Initiative Allocations (CIA) for the Senators and the Congressmen.
This paradigm's principles of frugality and prioritization, steering, and compartmentalization Re-engineering the Bureaucracy - Presidential Committee on Streamlining the Bureaucracy) is really very academic as it did not at all clarify its applicability in the concrete realities of its envir onset and context. That is the truth that majority of the Filipinos are dispossessed and powerless to face the jungle of profit orientation of the private initiatives. Besides, its entirety simply sounds nice but hypocritical since as a matter of fact, i t s framers are also the stalwarts of the sectors that will benefit from such framework. While it claims to regulate the participation of the private business in governmental functions, the necessary laws and policies for an intensified exploitation are alr eady in place. In order to effectively and efficiently do all of the above, the Ramos government needs a bureaucracy that will act as ordered just like a military organization. The appointment of his former colleagues in the Armed Forces of the Philippine s (AFP) to top positions in the civilian arm is one big step but not enough for his desired complete control.
The process of re-engineering the bureaucracy also serves as a means to pay-off or isolate the progressives in the ranks of the Career Executive Service Officers (Cesos) and the crackdown on the organized and militant section of the civil servants. This government is currently busy applying its psychological-war tactics by way of the soft approach of training to prepare them for the return of the dark days of martial rule thereby extract complete submission to the wishes of their superiors. Trainings of the Philippine Association of Army Reserve Units (PAARU) which is being implemented by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is now on-going to sow doubt and disunity among the civil servants as these trainees are tasked to spy on their fellow employees and act as scabs in cases of mass actions. Recently launched is the Moral Recovery Program directly under the baton of Malacanang (presidential palace) whereby government employees are made to attend seminars which indoctrinates them to self-centered ness and insensitivity to the events around them. These schemes are reminiscent of the involvement of the Metro Manila Aides (street sweepers) during strikes and mass actions against the dictatorship of Marcos and the indoctrination of government officials and employees on the Filipino Ideology of Marcos which extracted blind loyalty to the rule of a dictator. Ramos has improved the blue print of mar tial rule of Marcos, why not, when he has the comparative advantage of being educated at West Point which is one of the best training grounds of agents of the imperialist United States of America.
His regime has not reached desperation as its psychological l-war tactics are still effective in a situation which does not yet necessitate an open fascist rule. From the point of view of the Cesos and the rank and file of government employees, the process of re-engineering the bureaucracy is but another exercise of patronage system in the positioning of the proteges of the politicians and the high bureaucrats. While in the process, victimizing hundreds of thousands of government personnel who shall be dismissed in violation of the merit system of the civil service and their security of tenure. For the public sector workers, this is another round of their continuing struggle to defend their rights as workers much more their right to a source of livelihood.
As they have proven that the exercise of their strength thr u their organization is their reliable instrument to protect their interests, such is the route that they shall take.
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Research essay sample on Matter Of Fact Agrarian Reform
