(EID-002) “UPGRADED INFRASTRUCTURE”

Two misconceptions have infested the language of Filipino bureaucrats and politicians, in the understanding of what infrastructure means, and what it should include. Infrastructure is generally understood to mean only constructions such as roads and bridges, and is usually planned only to include public facilities.

It is about time to widen their general understanding of what infra should mean, and what it should cover, in connection with particular socio-economic development needs. In the case of education for instance, the meaning of infrastructure should cover not just buildings, but also the hardware and software that are needed in modernizing the delivery of learning.

Although there is no debate that public funds should not be spent for private purposes, our planning for development programs and projects should include incentives for private providers of public services, perhaps in the form of soft loans and tax breaks.

Take the case of the education and health sectors for instance. While it appears that private schools and private hospitals are more efficient than their public counterparts, they are not necessarily awash with cash, and could therefore use some help from the government in delivering their services that are public in nature.

In the case of the agriculture sector, it is unfortunate that infra is generally understood to mean only irrigation, and is even more unfortunate that the government target is to deliver water only to rice lands. It should enter the government mindset that poultry growers, hog raisers, cattle ranchers, vegetable farmers and even orchard owners also need water.

The active cooperation of the public sector and the business sector is the key to increasing access to public services, and upgrading the infra for these services should be their common goal. To state the obvious, the local government units should get involve in these undertakings, making sure that goals towards increasing access are included in their plans and actions.

Perhaps as an intervening factor, non-profit organizations (NPOs) should go in between these two sectors, being supposedly the third parties that have no commercial interests in the directions and outcomes of all development programs and projects. This is where a broad alliance of NPOs could be of great importance.