From the Manila Bulletin,
Malabon City government officials are criticizing the Camanava Area Flood Control and Drainage System Improvement Project for “failing to meet the expectations of the residents.“
After the meeting with Engr. Carla Bartolo, head of the project, Acting Malabon City Mayor Antolin Oreta III said the Camanava flood control project, “did nothing as regards to the perennial flooding particularly in Malabon.“
The Php 5.2 billion project also covered nearby areas in Caloocan, Navotas and Valenzuela, but a big bulk of the amount was purportedly utilized for constructing pumping stations, navigation gates and polder dikes in Malabon, according to Malabon City Engineer Edgar Yanga.
Two pumping stations were supposed to serve Caloocan, Malabon and Navotas areas, Yanga said.
The city officials noted some “flaws“ in the construction. Yanga said, “Ang expected na gagawin ay hindi ginagawa, paunti-unti. No target completion.“
He added: “The project is very much delayed. Five years na delayed.“
The project was started in 2003 and was supposed to be fully operational by 2007.
In the meetings with city officials, including 21 barangay chairmen, Bartolo attributed the delay of the project to the presence of some informal settlers covered by the project and changes in the conditions of the locations.
Oreta said the city continues to experience floods, citing some barangays which were affected by the heavy rains spawned by typhoon “Gener“ and recent tropical storms.
First of all, the nature of politics has all been about the blame game, where political agents benefit from stepping on someone’s shoes. Critics make the cavalier presumptions that under their guidance such problems will unlikely emerge.
Second, censures become the mechanical reaction once an event has already taken place. The usual culprit has been the private sector, but in one of the unusual case above, one government agency excoriates another.
But since politics has mainly been about the fetish for short term problems and fixes, fleeting popular concerns leads to intuitive shifts in policy directions.
This known as the time inconsistency dilemma, as per Wikipedia.com,
situation where a decision-maker's preferences change over time in such a way that what is preferred at one point in time is inconsistent with what is preferred at another point in time
Yet since experts cannot predict on the precise dislocations from weather disturbances, social policies result from “whack the mole” dynamics or from “fighting the last war” or to shifting priorities. So there will never be an end to central planning failures on reactionary based populist social policies.
Third, finger pointing will always be about mismanagement, deficiency of funding and or the lack of regulatory oversight.
In reality, since government treats the symptoms than the problem, the outcome will always be a gamut of unintended consequences.
Paradoxically, failures and inefficiencies (and corruption) will be rewarded through demands for more taxpayer expenditures.
Yet the biggest fundamental flaw emanates from the public’s mysticism over the infallibility of the nanny state.
Ironically many, if not most, have been jaded to the reality of serial failures of central planning, as I previously wrote:
Two more important things to drive at:
The first is the KNOWLEDGE problem.
The fact is that while there are instruments to help predict the changes in the weather, that knowledge is limited. This means that policy responses will ALWAYS be insufficient, no matter what they do.
The second point is that these has been all about the HOT POTATO problem—everyone seems to toss the responsibility to another party.
Everyone has been HARDWIRED to EXPECT that the government must and shall deliver us from environmental disruptions and disasters.
Yet no matter the horrible track record, we maintain this illusion of infallibility.
People cannot seem to accept that government are composed by people, and like everyone else, has limitations in the possession of knowledge.
Most of the dogmatic belief on the ascendancy of the state emanates from economic ignorance and mass indoctrination.
As the great Professor Ludwig von Mises warned
What makes many people blind to the essential features of any socialist or totalitarian system is the illusion that this system will be operated precisely in the way that they themselves consider as desirable. In supporting socialism, they take it for granted that the "state" will always do what they themselves want it to do.
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