February 21, 2022

Whole-Of-Nation Reforms

Whole-Of-Nation Reforms

“I will return all the years the locusts have eaten”. -- Joel 2:25

Dear Compatriots and all who seek reforms for the Nation,
A friend once said that we are a rich nation, living in suppressed, deferred prosperity. In my heart I know that is true, but -- what are the roadblocks hiding that prosperity? What reforms will awaken us to collectively bring about the turnaround that we long for? Is it WHOLE-OF-NATION REFORMS in tandem with WHOLE-OF-GOVT REFORMS that the govt has started?

PRODUCTIVITY

Restoring and protecting Productivity of people and communities:

  • Stop excessive long queues (pila-pila) wasting time and productivity of the masses
  • Reduce and stop congestion in public offices, banks, service centers, roads, and highways
  • Reverse excessive urbanization, congestion, traffic, and man-made bottlenecks;
  • A better institutional and social context can make a difference to individual productivity.
  • Minimize urban blight, bloated centers, flattened peripheries, starved countryside
  • Economic stimulus and recovery programs;
  • Anti-red tape in govt and private sector (ARTA); Productivity and Efficiency Movements.

TAX REFORMS

Towards reasonable, equitable, efficient, affordable tax systems (i.e., TRAIN 1 and 2; ARISE); Progressive, developmental utilization of taxes that recycle our cash; Making able taxpayers, willing and eager, to share the costs and fruits of good government; Tax Consciousness Programs that motivate citizens to be willing, able, and eager taxpayers; Taxpayers’ buy-in to a responsible govt that is sensitive to the needs of the citizenry.

TAX CONSCIOUSNESS IS A KEY TO PRODUCTIVITY

Productivity comes from a culture and habit of giving and sharing:

  • Giving to govt and nation through taxes is a higher form of CSR giving
  • The reflex of asking and giving one-sided tax breaks can sometimes be counterproductive
  • Tax consciousness is an instinct for good housekeeping and patriotism
  • It is the Godly sharing of the costs of community, akin to the giving of tithes
  • It is sound national financial management that induces a healthy, growing GDP.

REDUCE AND ELIMINATE CORRUPTION

Corruption is a major roadblock to Prosperity:

  • Let’s reduce and eliminate corruption in all sectors, public and private:
  • “The buck starts here with me”; without “corruptors” there is no corruption
  • Honesty in the service enriches the value of one’s job and one’s self;

Corruption Impedes economic growth: (from a USAID commissioned study)

  • Corruption taxes entrepreneurship
  • It reduces the quality of public infrastructure
  • It diminishes tax revenues

Corruption exacerbates income inequality

Corruption degrades governance

Reduced public trust in government increases armed conflict and vulnerability of the poor

Carefully crafted, anti-corruption programs yield important poverty reduction results:

  • Create more equitable income distribution
  • Strengthen governance institutions
  • Improve government services, especially in health and education
  • Increase public trust in government

FINANCIAL, BANKING LAWS and REGULATIONS

Improving the banking and financial legal framework and environment.

FINANCIAL REFORMS

Inclusive digital banking where no one is left unserved or underserved
Financial inclusion; reducing barriers to financial access
Reforms in Agri-Agra, and MSME lending law and practice to improve access
Banking reforms for more equitable access to bank services and credit for smallholders
Developing a culture of responsible credit consciousness as a personal and social value

There will be more if we put our collective mind, heart, and soul into it; some of these reforms have been started and are ongoing; some are about to start and some have to be started anew and sustained. Whole-of-Nation means ALL PARTS OF THE WHOLE AND THE WHOLE IN ALL ITS PARTS get moving in harmony, everyone runs the race, till we arrive. It means a reform mindset that believes that no one has the monopoly on Patriotism, that everyone can indeed change and reform for good – the Whole-of-Govt, all three branches and agencies, the BIR, the Police, the Military, the Academe, the private sector – all of us, and that starts with Me.

REFORM PROGRAMS

Economic stimulus and recovery programs initiated by govt
Poverty eradication programs by the private sector, like ECSOM** and “Smart Cities”
Balik-Probinsya2 BALIK-PROBINSYA (White Paper)
Universal Basic Income THE NEW NORMAL, UBI (White Paper)
BP2 and UBI can start with a govt mandate, and then get caught by all; a successful BP program supports and can help fund a successful UBI program and vice-versa.

IMMEDIATE IMPACT OF REFORMS

Reforms will mean better cash flow for all:
More taxes for government; More access to social amelioration and capital for citizens; reforms are inter-connected, correlated by purpose and with results: more supply, broader distribution, and higher velocity of money that will keep the nation healthy and energized, enough to overcome calamity and realize the true potential of its people.

Reforms will induce beneficial, sustainable cycles:
The package of core reforms will induce and trigger beneficial, sustainable, replicating cycles that will launch the nation to fulfill national aspirations:
Reforms = more govt cash
= more people support programs
= more available capital
= more productivity of people and institutions
= more cash
= people-friendly regulatory and banking practice
= more productivity in the countryside= more traction for Balik-Probinsya2
= less congestion in NCR
= more rural productivity= more cash and capital
= more spiraling productivity cycles in the Whole of the Nation.

THE ENDGAME

“In that day… I will bring back my exiled people; they willrebuild the ruined cities and live in them”. --Amos 9:14
And the endgame, the final stroke, the tipping point, the climax to WHOLE-OF-NATION REFORMS:

  • Is the WHOLE-OF-INSURGENCY returning HOME; (armed conflict is the deadliest roadblock)
  • the lost flock returning to the bosom of the motherland
  • the final, last touch to unmasking and unhiding our suppressed, deferred prosperity
    Reconciliation and healing of a land fractured by lawless rebellion and armed conflict gone mad.

52 YEARS IN THE MAKING AND NOT MAKING IT:

“Doing the same thing again and again, expecting a different result is INSANE” - Einstein
Fighting it out in the mountains won’t do it;armed struggle choreographed from an armchair in Utrecht,and from swivel chairs in the house never did it;another 52 years of internecine killings surely won’t do it.BUT WHOLE-OF-NATION REFORMS WILL DO IT! WE HAVE 52 WEEKS!!

FAREWELL TO ARMS; OVERDUE HOMECOMING

Let the “Fratelli Tutti”, let our brothers come home from the mountains, from the underground, from the red, gray, and white areas; let us all come home from the exile of misunderstanding, deception, and missed shots, to rebuild a nation we short-changed, in peace, harmony, prosperity.
That the 52 years old armed communist insurgency is ending is clear and simple:
It is clear when seen from a 52-year-old perspective
It is clear and simple from the perspective of “baby boomers” and “first quarter Stormers”

From the long perspective that outlives the “event horizon” of millennials and a fresh crop of young patriots and activists, a rerun of the same spirit of patriotism, -- it is clear and simpleIt is clear from the perspectives of the WHOLE-OF-GOVT approach and WHOLE-OF-NATION reforms.

The logic, analogy, and equation are clear and simple:
That “power comes from the barrel of the gun” is now a stale Chinese proverb, its efficacy overtaken by modern technology and a better philosophy; armed communist insurgency*** is obsolete, a spent force rendered powerless and inept from the perspective of 52 years of ongoing history; bullets and bombs have been replaced by smarter ideas, systems, and technology that do the job better and accomplish the changes we seek faster. It is replaced by the superior force of the new philosophy of “Whole-of-Nation” reforms that can move us to rediscover our Prosperity.

SO HELP US, GOD!

Bob Calida
20 Nov. 2020
ECSOM or Ecosystem-Community-Sustainable-Organization-Management is a Poverty Eradication model developed by Dr. Sixto K. Roxas. It aims to create self-reliant local communities by installing sustainable, inter-linked enterprises in portfolios that create income and propagate wealth while preserving bio-capacity.
***Marxist, Leninist, and Maoist ideologies have lost most of their following and game-changing energies and the favorite slogan “dictatorship of the proletariat” has become nothing more than a lame excuse to gain a “dictatorship of the power grabbers”. This picture is repeated again and again by former rebels who have come back from the underground.