Basic needs

Saying “we can’t dream of having a subway like Japan if we can’t even fix the escalator or elevator, or improve our walkways and pedestrian crossings” sounds like an impenitent critic lambasting the Marcos administration.

Curiously, however, it comes from newly rotated Transport boss Vince Dizon in an interview last week on basic everyday commuter needs and infrastructure.

Now, should Dizon stay true to his vow that harassed daily commuters on our mass transport systems will actually get what they need in basic conveniences, maybe we won’t despair so much of the government.

Interestingly, news about the daily disasters commuters face came just before the stirring news that the Education department bought 172,000 MacBook Neo laptops for public school teachers and staff.

The education department’s deal on the quality computers — bought below retail price and with a five-year warranty and training programs — was received warmly, even by the administration’s hard-bitten critics.

Besides the huge savings in government funds, however, the Education department’s laptop deal was notably seen as once more learning to hope for corruption-free governance.

The laptop deal, as one observer hopes, can become “the standard for government procurement: competitive pricing, useful equipment, reasonable warranty coverage, and public disclosure of the documents behind every transaction.”

As for commuters’ woes, the Transport department clearly acknowledged that for years mass transport commuters were treated as a kind of afterthought.

A sinful afterthought committed mostly by shortsighted, car-centric bureaucrats and lawmakers who spent years thumbing their noses at the truth that only well-maintained and convenient mass transport systems will get millions of Filipinos somewhere in the fastest time possible.

At any rate, both the DepEd’s laptop deal and Dizon’s honest take on commuters’ woes are, in a sense, about the inescapable fact that most people ultimately judge a good or bad government on how well it provides basic services and on how open and honest it is in providing those services.

And mind you, paying attention to the basics works wonders insofar as dealing with what has haunted and shamed most Filipinos for years: massive corruption.

Undoubtedly, massive corruption wraps its tentacles everywhere, even around the harassed commuter and teacher.

Take, for example, the stinky restrooms and staircases too steep for seniors at the dilapidated, age-old LRT-1 stations that transport nearly 350,000 Filipinos daily and which transport officials believe are just one disaster away from falling apart.

The Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA), the regulator of LRT-1, was set to kick off rehabilitation works in 2025 to make it withstand earthquakes and make the line’s busiest stations more accessible and convenient.

Unfortunately, LRTA’s rehabilitation efforts were indirectly derailed when the trillion-peso flood control projects scandal unraveled.

Corruption, in short, can never be treated as an isolated case, as anomalies in one public service agency can impact the worthwhile efforts of another public service agency.

Nonetheless, the DepEd’s laptop deal and the Transport department’s commitment to the commuter at least give glimmers of hope that some in government are getting their act together.

Such hopes, however, shouldn’t mean we could let our guard down.

Corruption, realistically speaking, and its ghoulish practitioners from political dynasties are still very much alive, and this requires everybody’s watchful eyes, protest and scorn.

In fact, look no further than the congressional deliberations on next year’s national budget, where conceited congressional mandarins had the gumption to turn their noses up at and wrestle with fully informed budget watchdog groups.