After two months of living in California, what holds my attention is how everything works and functions according to plan and schedule. I can’t help contrasting how things are here with how things are back in Manila. Let’s look at three examples.
First, the traffic. Manila traffic has been rightly described by author Dan Brown in his novel Inferno as “the gates of hell.” The gridlock consumes so much time that people would rather stay put where they are than venture out to another city that should be 30 minutes away instead of the two to three hours it now takes to get there. It’s infuriating. In the California suburbs, traffic is almost non-existent, while even freeway traffic and rush hour traffic in busy cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles are bearable in comparison.
Second, public transportation. The Bay Area’s bus lines are AC Transit and Union City transit. They work in tandem with the BART light rail, bringing workers from the bedroom towns to their work in San Francisco. To make it easy for commuters to pay their fares, BART sells the Clipper prepaid card, which can also be used for AC transit buses. UC buses allow free “transfers” from one bus to another within a certain time period.
The BART and buses are mostly on time if not early. Bus stop signs are clearly marked, schedules are posted on many bus stop signs or available as flyers and online. Los Angeles has a similar system, the Metro, that runs buses, bus rapid transit, light rail, and subway. All these forms of transportation have spaces for wheelchairs and bike racks, and designated areas for seniors.
Our buses, on the other hand, run to no schedule and stop practically anywhere. And the MRT and LRT are sardine cans of doom. Neither of these systems provide for the needs of the disabled or bike riders. It’s aggravating.
Taxis pick and choose their passengers, which is annoying for someone’s who’s stood in line for an hour only to be refused by cabbie. No wonder Grab and Uber are thriving, despite efforts to take them down—they provide a service that would not be necessary if other forms of public transport were more reliable and comfortable.
Third, social services. A newly arrived immigrant who has not yet found a job may apply for health insurance under Medi-Cal and “nutrition assistance” (what used to be called food stamps) under CalFresh. ID cards and driver’s licenses may be obtained from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Social Security cards are automatically mailed within two weeks of the immigrant’s arrival, green cards in less than two months.
Applications for government services are processed quickly and easily, most of it online. If you have to go to an office, it usually takes just one visit to process your request. Benefit cards, IDs and licenses, green cards and “socials” are mailed to the recipient using regular US Post within a week to six weeks—no need to go back and forth to the offices as we do in the Philippines.
Why the glaring difference between the US system and ours? It is a matter of good administration and management. Processes and procedures in the US were developed to be efficient and effective, based on common sense and laws and regulations that accommodate everyone.
What I cannot understand is why, with the resources at our command, we are still unable to solve ordinary issues of public transportation and services when the US, Europe, Japan, and many other countries are able to make theirs serve their people better. Consultants from around the world have offered their services to design workable programs. The best practices are there for our country to study and adapt; there is no need to reinvent the wheel, just tweak it.
Is it then a question of having good managers? Then why don’t we have them? Why are we suffering the same public service horrors administration after administration?
It’s sickening and frustrating. It looks like the much-vaunted change, in this area at least, hasn’t come. The question is will it arrive eventually, or we are again waiting on nothing?