10 OCTOBER 2007

pcij.org


us your views and comments about this article.

Or discuss it in our blog.

RELEVANT LINKS

THIS MONTH'S FEATURES

RECENT FEATURES

THE ESTRADA TRIAL

ALL ABOUT EBA

ALIEN NATION

LITERATURE AND LITERACY

ELECTIONS 2007

FACES OF CHANGE AND CHANGELESS PLACES

PUBLIC EYE

NEW POLITICAL DYNASTIES LOCAL BOSSES GOOD (LOCAL) GOVERNANCE

2006 FEATURES


 i    R E P O R T  —  H A S   N E D A   G O N E   N A D A ?


CONTINUING ITS 'EXEMPLARY REPUTATION'
In the last two weeks, the Senate has been trying to pry more information from NEDA about the Palace’s connection with the NBN deal. Current NEDA Director General Augusto B. Santos, however, has done a Neri by invoking the executive privilege and refusing to hand over the minutes of the meetings of the NEDA-ICC that led to the deal’s approval. In a recent letter to the Senate, he argued that since “discussions in closed-door Cabinet and NEDA meetings are considered executive privilege…the minutes of said closed-door meetings are also covered by executive privilege.”

Such an argument could well add more to the growing frustration of Sicat and company over NEDA’s current state, especially since it is the first time that the agency has obviously been put under a gag order. Yet Sicat and the other former NEDA chiefs present at the UP forum said they would like to believe the staff of the agency remain professional and want the agency's "exemplary reputation" to continue.

This can be done, they said, by promoting greater transparency and a clearer accountability in every step of the evaluation process. Monsod, in particular, also recommended that post evaluation of projects be conducted to find out if the assumptions borne by projects are correct, aware that rates of return can be manipulated.

And if NEDA is worth saving at all, Monsod said it is imperative to make sure that the right person heads it. In 35 years of its existence, NEDA had been headed by a non-economist only once. That lone non-economist happens to be Neri, whose background is in marketing and finance, though he teaches macroeconomics at the Asian Institute of Management and has several books on the economy.

Monsod, however, warned the public of an even graver threat. “It's the beginning of the end of NEDA,” she said, “when it's headed by a politician.”

But with NEDA being only a creation of an executive order, can the agency really be insulated from politics and pressure from politicians?

“Even now, we get a lot of pressure from legislators for their own projects,” Turiano told PCIJ, confessing that he thinks the agency will really not be independent as long as Congress passes a law to operationalize Section 9 of Article XII on National Economy and Patrimony in the Constitution.

Yet even that provision appears to be contradictory, as Medalla pointed out. “It calls for creating an independent planning agency but which would still be headed by the president,” he said.

Monsod and Paderanga are not receptive to the idea, though. To them, establishing an independent economic and planning agency will only make it a “paper tiger” — isolated and even more innocuous than what NEDA has apparently become.

Email us your comments about this article, or post them in our blog.

Copyright © 2007 All rights reserved.
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM