Reengineering the government
Fred de la Rosa of the Manila Times suggests 50 ways to cut cost in government. Among his suggestions are:

1) Do not hold meetings and hearings at five-star hotels and upscale restaurants.

I don't know if congressional committee hearings are still held in restaurants and hotels today (Batasan has now a new building for that now) , but four or five years ago years ago, it was quite common to hold committee meetings in places like the Sulo Hotel or the restaurant Racks.

2) Recycle office supplies and materials. If you receive an invitation by fax, write your acceptance or regrets on the same piece of paper and fax it back.

We often hear of government offices with huge unpaid telephone bills. I think if the government would make maximun use of new technology, it would be able to drastically cut communication expenses. In fact, if we would really be cost-efficient about it, pace Mr. De la Rosa, fax machines should be tossed away . They are so twentieth century. It is possible now to send facsimile copies directly through internet-connected computers without a need to printing out documents first. As former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad said, a paperless government is possible.

It was, I think, PN Abinales who, tongue-in-cheek, suggested that to save up money in the government's negotiations with the CPP-NPA, it would be better for the negotiations to be done through texting rather than sending delegations to far-away Netherlands. I think texting would be impractical and tedious, a more workable technology for the negotiations would be internet relay chat software. Not only would they be able to exchange views real time, the negotiators would also be able to exchange documents. After the chat negotiations, there would also be an automatic transcript of the negotiations