Let's Imagine Any Incumbent Bureau Of Corrections Chief At The Weekly Question Hour

The recent Senate hearing done investigating Nicanor Faeldon as the Bureau of Corrections (BOC) chief has me asking, "Why isn't this done every week?" The recent investigations had something to do on whether or not the Good Conduct Time Allowance (GCTA) and the Revised Penal Code were done properly. Why just have a hearing now? Why do questioning only when something questionable happens? Haven't you heard of companies that do a weekly inspection to make sure that their quality is up? While the threat of termination is indeed necessary but why not set up a SYSTEM that will improve quality? You can fire everyone from the workplace for not standards, hire a new set of employees but if your system is faulty then you can expect the same mess all over again.

How will weekly questioning correct the BOC? Just imagine if Corrections Minister Faeldon were called every week under the term of Prime Minister Rodrigo R. Duterte. Just imagine if every week the topic concerning criminals who are possible candidates for release were mentioned. Just imagine if we had a Shadow Minister of Corrections set up to question the actual Minister of Corrections. This Shadow Minister of Corrections would be pointing out possible loopholes of the GCTA and Revised Penal Code. He or she may demand proof that the two suspects of the Chiong sisters' case deserved their release or question if there was an order to release Sanchez. Minister Faeldon of the Ministry of Corrections will have to answer EVERY WEEK along with other Duterte appointees which may give more transparency towards the Filipino people because this questioning is TELEVISED for all to see. Results will also be written in newspapers and other publications. Mass media will be there whether it's ABiaS-CBN, GMA-7, Inquirer, CRappler, Manila Times, and so on will also be there to take note of how the questioning went on.

Philippine government agencies lack discipline is because of the SYSTEM. You need both good employees and good equipment to work with. How can you expect a good chef to do a good job if you give him a rusted knife and rusted cleaver? How do you expect your call center's best agents to do a good job if they're stuck with obsolete PCs and bad equipment? A company can fire all the stupid people but if it doesn't have a good system then it will have a high turnover rate. A company with a good system will have less need to fire employees because most people who don't pass through the training won't be regularized. You can go ahead and reason that a constitution is not an operating system or a house but it FUNCTIONS LIKE ONE. A constitution houses the very laws of a country! It serves as a guide to how to operate the country! If you're a SYSTEMS engineer and you think systems don't matter in running people - better not renew your license then! It's because people are like cogs. No matter how good the cogs are but a bad machine will still make them useless.

How can you expect the heads of these various departments to do their job well if there are too many rats and too little cats? You can always say that there's the Ombudsman but can it alone take care of complaints? You can say that there's Senate hearing but how often is it done in contrast to the Parliament's weekly hearing? You can even say that there are legislators from the opposition but are there shadow ministers to scrutinize the actual ministers? Having a two-way street between the Majority and Minority works better for this reason - democracy is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. People includes both majorities and minorities and a real democracy listens to both sides. A presidential system usually relies on the rule of majority. However, a parliamentary system goes with, "Majority wins the government seats but the minority has the duty to correct the majority." - which itself is really more democratic.