National ID fiasco

Our government bureaucracy is not known for getting things done quickly and properly.

- BOO CHANCO

That's because we do not have a bureaucracy based on merit. We have a bureaucracy with more people doing less than what is expected of them. Our bureaucracy is held captive by our politicians and that explains a lot of what's wrong with it.

But there are islands of excellence, or at least, there used to be. The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas are two examples of government institutions I used to respect. I started my career being assigned to cover the DFA, and there I met impressive foreign service officers who knew their business and, at least at the time, seemed to be above corruption.

When I started writing on economics, the folks at the BSP also impressed me. They were qualified for their jobs, and they also did not seem to be corrupt. Maybe, I thought, that's partly because they are the highest-paid Salaries aside, the performance of DFA and BSP officials in recent years has been somewhat disappointing.

Because of the sensitivity of printing our passports and the national ID, both jobs were entrusted to these two top agencies. And the results have been pretty bad.

BSP was responsible for printing passports until then-governor Amando Tetangco Jr. decided that was not BSP's function. Later, Ben Diokno, when he was BSP governor, wanted to take back the passport printing job. The experience of BSP in passport printing had not been good. There were delays to the point that no passports could be issued some years ago.