Why not be as passionate in fighting for transparency?

So many activists are passionately advocating for so many new government programs and roles without thinking of the spending and corruption involved. No matter how noble the idea is, it will be futile if there is no transparency. Suppliers (cronies) will be favored, taxpayer's money will be stolen, and the only growth and progress will be in our debt.
government spending
Photo taken from 24 types of Authoritarian

Kulang kasi sa pondo (budget is not enough). But then do we really know how much they are spending? Do we really know where the money is going?

Not so long ago, our congress decided to subsidize farmers and give them free fertilizer (at first glance it sounds like a good idea, right?). But then what happened? Billions were stolen, bureaucrats got new cars and houses, and now no one's even talking about it anymore. The same thing with the ZTE scandal thing. Our noble senators decided that Hayden Kho was a more important issue.

A few days ago, I saw a red plate Pajero being used for personal grocery matters. May I remind you, for every single red plate car you see: the purchase, maintenance, and fuel consumption is a burden to the taxpayer. It should be legislated that citizens have the right to slap bureaucrats using red plate cars for their own personal use.

czech president stealing pen
Czech Republic President was caught stealing a pen

Yes, a pen. I think this is an important value we should have. We must be extremely critical of everything that bureaucrats do. Every single purchase of the government from even the cheapest paper clip must be scrutinized. Remember that governments don't have their own money. They acquire their budget through coercive taxation, inflation, and "foreign aid" (see also: Ron Paul's interview about how US taxpayer's money was funding Mubarak's authoritarian government http://youtu.be/Z9D7W7rD1R0).

In some countries, politicians will resign when faced with scandals. Here in our country, they don't have that kind of dignity at all. People even decided to elect Gloria Arroyo in congress. That's insane. This roots from our lack of wariness in the government. This wariness is a value we should all have.

There's just so many topics I don't want to talk about due to PR concerns. So instead, I'll just talk about the importance of being a fiscal conservative. Didn't we already give the DOH money we called "family planning fund"? And now some are so passionate about giving them billions more? And so I go back to my question: why not be just as passionate in fighting for transparency first?


If you liked this article you might also like:
1. David Cameron on Technology and Transparency
2. Why is the Internet Slow in the Philippines
3. The Government's Spirit of Christmas

1 comment:

  1. I like the way you describe the "success" of statist programs: "No matter how noble the idea is, it will be futile if there is no transparency. Suppliers (cronies) will be favored, taxpayer's money will be stolen, and the only growth and progress will be in our debt." Yes! This is the kind of "progress" that "progressives" either fail or ignore to see. . .

    ReplyDelete

Powered by Blogger.