Reason or wishful thinking?

Strategic Perspective -- By René B. Azurin

Voters who choose presidential candidate Noynoy Aquino are discarding reason for wishful thinking. I certainly empathize with their wishes for better governance, but I think that placing their bets on a candidate who has achieved essentially nothing in his public career, who has shown no interest whatsoever in any reform issue, and who is funded by big business and other vested interests is the height of foolishness. Such an unthinking vote can only end in collective frustration and dashed hopes.

On her provocative talk show on DZRH radio yesterday, host Dr. Cora Claudio posed the question of how voters should make their choices as to whom to vote for. My answer was that choices should be made on the basis of two factors: i) a candidate’s public record of achievement, and ii) the sources of funding being used by a candidate in his campaign. For me, those are the more solid bases we voters have for discerning what candidates would do and achieve once elected. Campaign rhetoric is worthless for this purpose.

As perennial victims of empty political promises, we should all be acutely aware of how politicians will say anything while running for office and how they will then develop Alzheimer’s about what they promised once voted into office. I said on Dr. Claudio’s program therefore that we should ignore what candidates say during the campaign and, instead, look at what they have actually done or achieved in their lives prior to that period. A particular record of accomplishment is a far better indicator of a candidate’s performance in office than anything he actually says while campaigning for votes. It is a reasonable basis for us voters to judge if he will do what he says he will do. More importantly, it is a reasonable basis for us voters to judge if the candidate can do what he says he will do. "Can" addresses capability; "will" speaks only of intention.

In addressing capability, a candidate’s sources of campaign funding indicate, at the minimum, his constraints and, at the maximum, his agenda. Major funders of political campaigns are not known to be altruistic individuals who will part with sizable portions of their fortunes simply to satisfy an unrelated third party’s political ambitions or to achieve a public good. These funding sources naturally expect private gain from their financial contributions and invariably demand that their financed candidate either protect their economic fiefdoms from competition or use government power to bestow on them lucrative rackets. "Rackets" do not mean just jueteng, drugs, and smuggling, although operators of such rackets are now the biggest contributors to political campaigns. Rackets also include the corralling by favored cronies of overpriced importations of coal, rice, and other major commodities, the massively padded construction of selected public infrastructure, and assorted "sweetheart" government deals.

Being a teacher of management and a former practicing manager (although, admittedly, not a very good one), I am more aware than most of how effective or ineffective management spells the difference between what is achieved and what is not achieved by an organization. I am also more aware than most that management skills are acquired skills (not inherited ones) and require management experience to actually develop.

This is why -- for me -- presidential candidate Aquino is not a "reasoned" choice but a "wishful thinking" choice. In the private sector, selling Nike shoes or handling security at his family’s hacienda or lending his name to a security agency set up to obtain government service contracts does not constitute management experience of any consequence. In Mr. Aquino’s 12 years in Congress, filing a tiny handful of bills and not being able to get any of them passed indicates laziness, ineffectiveness, disinterest, or all of the above. It is pure wishful thinking -- of the sort indulged in by schoolgirls who imagine that a "Prince" on a white steed is not in fact a self-absorbed and vacuous pomposity -- to even consider that such an underachieving individual is going to be the "savior" who can rescue this country from bad governance and raise all of us peasants up out of our economic sinkholes.

My bias is for demonstrated achievement because intentions (no matter how noble) are -- until they are realized -- merely scratches on paper or noises in the wind. To achieve a group objective -- and governance is a group activity -- requires the ability to manage. Given multiple objectives and the variety of competing interests, the task of managing government is particularly difficult. Translating good intentions into concrete achievements is not something reasonably to be expected from someone inexperienced, lazy, uninterested, or weak.

In this light, Mr. Aquino’s campaign slogan of "Kung walang korap, walang mahirap" is -- without commenting on the logic of the slogan itself -- essentially meaningless if one is not convinced that Mr. Aquino has the abilities to achieve either the elimination of corruption or the elimination of poverty. It’s a squeak in the wind.

The government of former President Cory Aquino, Mr. Aquino’s mother, offers the perfect illustration of what I mean. Lacking management expertise, Mrs. Aquino’s (presumed) good intentions never had a chance of being realized. In fact, her government was certifiably a mess because she simply did not have the skills to control what was called Kamag-Anak Inc. and the other competing interests in her own coalition. She was also incapable of installing a management system that would enable her to determine that her programs (assuming she had them) were being implemented and that her subordinate managers were progressing toward congruent goals.

I don’t bother to respond to hate mail from rabid Aquino supporters because I find it useless to engage in a discussion with individuals whose holier-than-thou attitudes only manifest closed minds. But to those who appear to be open to reason even as they might question my preference for presidential candidate Manny Villar, I say basically that our respective decisions proceed from different sets of assumptions (as well as different information sets).

We all make basic assumptions when we cast our vote. Those for Mr. Aquino assume that he will -- despite his glaring lack of achievement and a public record distinguished only by his congressional defense of the Hacienda Luisita massacre and his vote (supporting Gloria Arroyo) against the playing of the "Hello Garci" tapes -- be a good leader. Those for Mr. Villar, like me, assume that -- having already raised some P23 billion from the sale of his company’s stock in New York -- Mr. Villar is after a psychic return and not a monetary return on the maybe P2 billion he is spending on this campaign and that he will, if he wins, apply his demonstrated managerial abilities and first-hand understanding of the problems of the poor to reform this country and actually lift it out of the economic cellar.

Most voters, I am certain, want their vote to lead to a better future for this country. As best they can, these voters should apply reason to the making of their choice. To vote on the basis of wishful thinking would be irresponsible.