Why Throwing Out An Incompetence-Based System Should Come First

It's very easy to say we should weak out incompetent people but is that enough? If you remembered I wrote that the dysfunctional 1987 constitution should go kaboom first. It's time we discuss about why we need a competency based system before we can effectively weed out the incompetent. It's the chicken and the egg. There has to be system change first or there should be a set of rules first before you can expect changes. Waiting for Filipinos to change is just like waiting for thievery to stop before you set rules against it. Trying to get rid of weeds in your garden without the right tools and methods will just tire out the gardener. 

Replacing the popularity-based presidential-unitary system with the competency-based parliamentary-federal system

I agree that the Philippines as a nation should go federal. After reading the basics of federalism it's nice to know how the country can be decongested. The country is plagued with a democracy meant for stupid people no thanks to the popularity-driven presidential system. It's useless to discourage people from voting stupid people into power if the government system is popularity driven. Federalism can be bad if there's no competency-based system to back it up. The late Miriam Defensor Santiago wasn't entirely against federalism as long as something was there to back it up. It would do no good to go federal if people just keep voting popular people with no brains into power. Instead, federalism should be accompanied by a credibility-based system. 

The difference between a parliamentary system and a presidential system relies on how it treats competency. The presidential system relies on a spare wheel mentality. Let's just say that Noynoy Aquino got beheaded in Saudi Arabia last 2013. Instead of having the freedom to run a snap election everyone must be automatically under the rule of Jejomar Binay. A parliamentary system could have also replaced Noynoy for a better head of State. A vote of no confidence could have ousted Noynoy during incidents like the Manila Hostage Crisis and the Mamasapano incident. A parliamentary system would have already kicked out Noynoy and maybe Alan Cayetano or Richard Gordon would have been president by now.

I thought about how incompetence abounded during Noynoy's administration because of the popularity-based system. Noynoy chose Alan Impurisima as PNP Chief based on their friendship. The same happened with his appointments of people like Joseph Emilio A. Pabaya and Leila Dilemma as the Justice Secretary. The deteriorating MRT and Bilibid anomalies were uncovered even before the end of Noynoy's terms. Worse, instead of choosing his successor based on competency he decided to choose Marbobo Roxas instead of someone better. Even before Noynoy incompetence was already abounding because people choose based on popularity and friendship over competency. A competency-based systems would have chosen people based on competency even if it means choosing from the opposition. But a popularity-based system would ignore incompetence and put the person into their positions without thinking of the consequences. 

Replacing the incompetence-based economic protectionist policy with competency-based free trade policy

Saying that local businesses must first become competent before free trade should happen is what breeds incompetence among local businesses. If there's no competition coming in then what would motivate businesses to do better and not to mention gain new customers within the Philippines?  Only idiots like Neri Colmenares would have a loser mentality towards free trade.There is the fear that allowing foreign investors may destroy local businesses but that is the risk that the Philippines must take. There is no such thing as business without risk. This is risk-taking based on regulated risk. Foreign investors must follow the rules and regulations of the Philippines if they want to do business in the Philippines. Foreign investors under proper regulations will benefit competent local businessmen and it will drive incompetent business men impoverished.

So how does aiming for the national industrialization end up promoting incompetency instead of competency? If you pamper and overprotect the local businesses how will they grow up? Parents shouldn't pamper their children and neither should countries pamper their local businesses. Parents who train their children to stand up on their own will have better benefits when they're old than those who don't. The same applies to how a country shouldn't pamper its locals but train them to be competitive. If you protect the businesses from any form of healthy competition then how can the businesses learn to innovate and improvise for the better? They would end up getting stuck because they have no reason to be competent because there's hardly any competition. The idea that first world countries didn't accept foreign investment is a lie. You better study history and current events and look at how South Korea is doing much better than North Korea.

How would free trade encourage competency? It would give people more reasons to innovate and improvise their products and services. The fact there's only PLDT and Globe makes both companies incompetent. If there were other Internet services then wouldn't they start making their services better? This would also mean the end of all incompetent businesses. Dirty canteens will be forced to close down because local legitimate restaurants will be able to be more competent. Not only will restaurants be forced to be competitive but they can also get better services and more customers. This will also encourage local customers to take advantage of competitors. A good example is how a local business who sells commodities could take advantage in supplying the competition. He could be supplying to twenty known restaurants competing against each other which will result to him laughing his way to the bank. At the same time, having competition also made him find ways to get new customers. The twenty known restaurants he's supplying raw materials can also be happy with the fact that he's not their only service provider.

Setting rules and regulations to help maintain national competency should be done and strictly enforced

We should't forget about setting up simple guidelines and enforcing strict but reasonable policies for disobedience. Successful democratic countries like Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea enforce strict compliance of simple guidelines with reasonable penalties towards its citizens. Singapore is a really fine city because it makes people pay certain fines for breaking certain offenses. That rule is almost non-existent in the Philippines. People can happily jaywalk whenever there are no traffic enforcers around. If I had to pay PHP 500.00 for every time I encourage mendicancy then would't that help discourage mendicancy? If people had to pay fines for littering and making the public their toilet then wouldn't that encourage cleanliness?

This also means going against selective justice because that alone encourages impunity. Organizations like the Commission on Human Rights are always encouraging a culture of impunity. The Department of Justice and Bureau of Customs are so easy to bribe. The narcotic trade of Chinese drug dealers in the Philippines easily succeeds because all they need to do is bribe the BOC. They just pay money under the table and they get away. They just need to pay the Department of Justice and they get away with it. Dilemma had almost everyone fooled into thinking she was an enemy of druglords while she protected selected druglords who paid her. Not to mention shouldn't Daniel Padilla and Kathryn Bernardo be given appropriate punishment for violating rules during the election period?

It would be helpful to promote tourism and foreign investment if there will be more Filipinos who can follow simple guidelines. If more Filipinos followed simple guidelines then the more peace and order in the Philippines will be established. Having high peace and order will definitely encourage more tourism and foreign investment. If you want to sing "It's More Fun in the Philippines" then you must first make it more fun in the Philippines.