Sprinters in a marathon
By ANTONIO M. REYES

This week’s column is titled “Sprinters in a Marathon.” It’s also the name of a book I plan to write soon, as I am getting on in years, and words don’t come as easy as they used to.

Way back in the 1970s Filipinos where already known worldwide as  good planners, but (alas) very bad implementers.

My father who was then our Ambassador to the United Nations used to compare us with sprinters in a Marathon, in that we started fast, but were exhausted before reaching the finish line. In other words we didn’t have the stamina to finish what we started.

I’m afraid this lack of persistence has apparently stymied the implementation of President Benigno Aquino’s Executive Order 23 which environmentalists think could have been his greatest legacy to the country. 

For the Executive Order which was signed last February ordered an indefinite ban on the cutting down of trees in natural forests.

It also ordered the DENR to stop issuing or renewing log cutting permits in these areas and ordered the closure of saw mills and wood processing plants whose owners could not prove where their source of lumber came from.

The Executive Order also established an Anti-illegal Logging Taskforce which would implement this policy. And to ensure its effectiveness the entity is chaired by DENR  Secretary Ramon Paje and has as its members the DILG  Secretary, the AFP Chief of Staff and the heads of the Philippine Army and the PNP.

Well it’s been 10 months now since the Executive Order was signed and none of the National Agency Field officials I talked to have read it - or even knew it existed.

This situation reminded me of my stint with the National Council for Integrated Area Development (NACIAD) in the early 1980s which was then headed by Prime Minister Caesar Virata. Aware of the Filipino’s lack of persistence he proposed the creation of the “Office of the Inspector General” whose primary task would be to monitor and ensure that major government programs are completed on schedule.

Like most plans however, it too was never realized, not for lack of trying but because Ninoy Aquino was assassinated before it was established  and all hell broke loose. 

Yet even today I’m convinced the Virata plan would have worked because the only way we can get anything done in the Banana Republic we have become is through the ancient  management practice of “Tutok-Pukpuk".

"We have to regularly prod our public servants to do their job (which should be) to make life easier for citizens like us who pay their salaries..” 

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