Dragnet

It is much easier to measure efficiency in a factory than a bureaucracy. In a factory, it's a matter of input versus output; how much can be produced from how much material. In a government bureaucracy, it's not as straightforward. 

There is the tendency to rely on numbers to gauge  how effective something is. It's only natural. People like big numbers and charts with arrows pointing up. It works for private businesses for the simple reason that profit is easy to measure. It's different in government since nothing is constant and predictable.

It's better to give an example. In the courts, efficiency is measured in the number of cases disposed of per month. It makes sense. However, it does not take into account that it's not really up to the courts to decide how many cases get resolved in a month. Maybe the trial gets postponed. Maybe the parties decide to compromise. Maybe the compromise doesn't push through. The best you can do is make an estimate. This system isn't necessarily bad. One side effect though, is that some courts tend to hold off on promulgating decisions if the month has a sufficient amount in order to load it onto the next month's numbers. It produces minor delay but it shows that such a system can be gamed to make the reports look good.

The worst example of over-reliance on raw numbers is the travesty that is the "quota system" of the police. The police are given "quotas" by their superiors on how many arrests they should make per month. Right off the bat, one can see the problem with this system. How can you make a quota of how many arrests ought to be made per month? What is this based on? Are they implying they know with certainty how many crimes are committed in a given time and in a given area? Suppose that there's a lull in criminal activity, what then?

The problem with this quota system is that it encourages the police to arrest as many people as they can whenever they conduct a raid on a drug/gambling den. They call these raids "one time, big time" operations. I don't know why they call it "one time" as they do it many times but they're not kidding about the "big time" part. A lot of people get caught in these raids and a disturbing number of them are simply bystanders. It's like fishermen with a trawl net catching everything they can leaving destruction in their wake. The quota has to be met. Of course, the number of actual convictions isn't used as a measure of effectiveness, no, that's the prosecutor's problem. The police don't care. You could be dragged off to jail just by being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

In their haste to arrest as many people as they can, the police also tend to make a lot of mistakes. Evidence is often lacking. Suspects have to wait in the filthy and overcrowded jails before their case gets called to trial. When the time comes to explain the arrest, the judge is going to know eventually when a suspect is a mere bystander who was just out to buy a pack of sugar. Outside of raids, you have people arrested without a proper warrant just by looking sufficiently suspicious. The irony is that nothing can kill a case faster than a wrongful arrest. In which instance, it is just a massive waste of time for everyone involved.

But we need to get those numbers up, don't we? How else would the brass know if these deadbeat cops are earning their pay?

There has to be a better way.

Title Goes Here

There are many posters and tarps advertising new political groups all over the streets these days. It's election season after all, and these groups spring up like weeds only to disappear once it's all over. What caught my eye was that one of these posters had a lead candidate promoting himself as "Engineer Juan de la Cruz". Well good for him but does that mean he's planning to build a bridge or something? It didn't say what kind of engineer he was.

Traditionally, it's always been lawyers and doctors who swagger around with their titles. Nowadays, professionals from other disciplines are doing it too, not just our engineer. Accountants are trying to get in on it although adding "Accountant" before your name is probably not going to make you sound like a fun person. "Teacher" has a more noble air about it, don't you think? "Architect" is more iffy. These aren't jokes; people are doing this. 

For all the "pinoy pride" posturing, Filipinos don't think much of their own countrymen. It's always assumed that the typical Filipino is dumb, untrustworthy, or both. That's why people wear their titles in defiance as well as pride: "I am not one of the common rabble!", "I am intelligent and trustworthy!" If only that were the case. These titles denote profession. At most, they prove that you're smart enough to pass a board exam but if someone goes around calling himself "Attorney So N. So", how do I know if he's a good lawyer or a bad one?

Titles are treated as proof of character but it's not a guarantee. The den of vultures picking at the carcass of the republic are all supposedly smart people on paper. The President, who is a staunch advocate for summary executions, is a lawyer though you can be forgiven for not knowing that.

Still, people cling to their titles as a means to let others know that they're higher up the social totem pole and therefore have the right to tell you how to live your life. This is why the media made a big stink a few days ago about Imee Marcos. Imee Marcos, daughter of the late Ferdinand Marcos, claimed to have graduated from Princeton University. She didn't. A politician lying? Say it ain't so. A sheepskin from Princeton would be an awesome status symbol better than any Italian handbag. It was the same story with her brother too, who didn't earn a degree from Oxford University despite claiming he did. Their illness must be genetic.

I wonder if it's the same in other countries. I don't recall people doing this in the United States. Maybe doctors but I don't know.

Nobody tells you their title outside of professional settings unless it's to impress you. People who do this are basically selling themselves and the advertising can have different effects depending on the market. The D and E market would be very easily impressed as a title is something they aspire to and see value in. Just tell them you're a doctor and they'll assume you have two cars, two houses and two wives. The upper classes wouldn't be as impressed as they've sampled other products but a degree is still considered a bare minimum requirement to prove competence in something at least.

Don't think that I'm hating on accomplished people. I'm just skeptical. People who feel the need to drop their title constantly are suspicious. It's like a killjoy pulling rank on you. I don't have a fond experience of such people. I won't give names but I know this woman who would constantly remind everyone around her, in case they forgot, that she was an "attorney". She was a bully who did this to intimidate others. Never mind the fact that she had never stepped in a courtroom for half a century and probably had no more right to practice law. 

Everyone has something to sell, including themselves. Only doctors impress me but only because I know I'll need them sooner or later.

Just be you, for Christ's sake.

Thoughts on the Drug War

It's has been almost three years into the Duterte presidency and almost three years into his glorious war on drugs. Doesn't feel much different yet everything has changed.

Who We Are

It's a given that people have been killed in this war and we can only assume they were guilty. Good luck pinning this directly on the president. Nothing would ever be put to paper. 

Still, the president's critics and the usual vinegar-drinking scolds from the church wail about all the blood on his hands. It's all pointless and I don't know why they continue to do it. The president was upfront about what he was going to do. He ran his entire campaign promising to summarily execute the drug dealers and he won! What are we to make of that? We must accept that all of this has the approval of the majority of the Filipino people. You can't take the president down by pointing out that he's doing exactly the thing he said he was going to do.

Some harsh truths must be accepted. We cannot go on pretending that our greatest ideals are life, democracy and justice. The values espoused by the moralizers in the media are not as commonly shared as it is thought. It's all been tried. It's passe. It doesn't work. Everyone knows this so they went with the guy who said nuts to that and he'd do it his way. His critics crying about the death of democracy or whatever, don't really mean it anyway. They have their own agenda and championing old values and other lost causes is only good if it can get you elected. Who knew what would follow the EDSA era would be the cynical era? It's not so bad, for me anyway. I prefer people to be truthful. It's great that people have dropped their masks and shown their true colors. No more lectures about the rule of law or the preciousness of life. Anything and everything can be bargained away, any act can be rationalized. It's about raw power; realpolitik. Perhaps, it always had been.

You Seriously Don't Think We Can Win, Do You?

In three years when (or if) Duterte finally steps down, will the war continue? Can the troops fight without the great leader providing encouragement (and potential pardons)? I doubt it. One glaring flaw of Philippine democracy, and perhaps democracies in general, is that leaders change often and it can be hard to sustain long term projects since a new set of rulers brings in a new set of power players and cronies to infest the government. It's even worse here since politics is so personality driven and reliant on personal loyalties and not loyalties to institutions.

What if the next idiot who comes along decides that his big deal is going to be green energy or whatever, and decides to put the drug war on the back-burner, then what? Well the drug lords are going to come back, of course. What nobody realizes, least of all the dutertards, is that you cannot literally kill the problem of drug addiction and narcopolitics. I'd argue that the problem of drugs is just as much a spiritual and cultural problem as it is an economic one. Duterte's solution is the crudest solution of all and is not in any way sustainable. Cut the branches and even the trunk but the roots are still there. Other than killing, he has nothing else. Desperate people still want their fix and pushing that garbage is easy money.

What does victory even look like? Do people sincerely believe Duterte can solve the drug problem by killing every single drug dealer in the Philippines? The government can't even put down any of the communist/Muslim rebellions in the countryside for more than fifty years but we believe it completely eradicate drugs once and for all?

When the new kid in town comes along, the druggies will roll back in and it'll be as if nothing happened. Without El Jefe constantly rambling about drugs on the airwaves, people will forget about the problem. Always forget.

However, the word is that the president's daughter is considering a run for the highest office in the land. Now there's a very interesting topic: "political dynasties as a means to guarantee continuity in a cyclical form of government". If his daughter wins, the war could continue and I would be wrong. Alas, political dynasties vs. democratic elections is a topic for another day.

What I Feel

What do I think of the drug war, personally? To be honest, I don't care. I have already disabused myself of any notion that the country is some progressive heaven and its people saints.

I don't mind. It's just the world I live in.Do you blame the rain cloud when you get wet?

All I can do is hope nothing bad happens to me or people I care about.

MARS

One of the benefits of my job is that it allows me to observe the legal system closer than most people. One thing I have observed is this strange phenomenon that seems to happen whenever a particular criminal case has a lot of media attention focused on it. For academic purposes, let's call this the "Media Attention-Retardation Syndrome".

Media Attention-Retardation Syndrome (MARS) is a disease wherein people involved in a criminal case, from the public officials to the concerned parties, inexplicably drop thirty (30) points of IQ whenever the case is under intense media scrutiny or "goes viral", to borrow modern slang. It is theorized that the attention of the media produces among its victims a strong psychological response that causes forgetfulness, lack of focus, lapses in judgment, and other mental problems similar to those caused by extreme sleep deprivation. It may be thought of as a form of performance anxiety.

MARS is difficult to detect as it does not always affect people in all ways and at all times. It is possible it may not occur in some people at all. It is certain, however, that the likelihood of MARS is proportional to the intensity of the media attention. If the criminal case is featured on the national news or if a prominent politician is involved, sudden onset retardation is practically guaranteed.

For example, sufferers of MARS in the police force will inevitably and spectacularly bungle their investigation of the high profile crime. Whether or not the police always bungle their investigations and that we're only noticing it in that particular instance is a fair question, however. The police, in an effort to maintain the appearance of competence, begin to inform the media of their "findings", including their fantastical theories based on shady sources, lists of suspects who they may or may not be planning to question, and all the evidence they have collected so far. The wisdom of telling the public, and possibly the perpetrators, of your every move is not an issue. The importance of looking busy is paramount. It has been observed that the imposition of any time limit by a superior or politician dramatically increases the chance of MARS. Occasionally, the police may lock up the wrong person but they're only human.

MARS also affects suspects of the alleged crime. Suspects will exhibit erratic behavior and/or theatrical outbursts. Suspects may call for a radio interview or even a press conference to loudly proclaim that they're are innocent and that they have absolutely nothing to hide, no sir. They will then proclaim that "only God can judge them", "the truth will set you free", or any other such tedious platitudes. In severe cases the suspect may voluntarily "surrender" to the police despite still maintaining innocence and surrender being technically impossible since a case has not been filed yet.

A prosecutor suffering from MARS may suddenly forget the difference between preliminary investigation and inquest. Judges affected by MARS may come to realize or hallucinate biases against the party and inhibit themselves from the case. The lawyers file longer pleadings that read more like a madman's rambling manifesto. MARS may even cause delusions of grandeur as lawyers inexplicably begin to do their best impressions of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

It's a nuthouse.

Trying

There are never enough hours in a day.

Morissey - Everyday Is Like Sunday

The Ingrown

A pain on my right big toe had been nagging at me for months. Like many bad things in life, pretending it doesn't exist won't make it go away. Eventually the side of my toe had deformed to such an extent that I developed a blister since my flesh was rubbing against my shoe. There was a shooting pain from the tip of my toe to the base.

I decided to see a doctor. Based on the pictures I sent him beforehand, he told me that it looked like a severe case of an ingrown toenail and that surgery would be best. I wished it was a wart instead or something minor. I suggested he examine in it person first before recommending action. He scheduled an examination inside the minor operating room of the hospital. I guess he was that sure of the diagnosis.

On the day of the appointment, he barely had to look at it for five seconds before concluding that it was an ingrown toenail. I had two choices: surgery or antibiotics. I asked the doctor what good antibiotics would do since it won't exactly solve the problem. He shrugged. I love non-options. The illusion of choice can be very comforting. Surgery it was.

I had to put a gown over my clothes and a shower-cap. Since the nurses manning the operating room had nothing better to do, they began to crowd around. I told the doctor to keep the helping hands to a minimum. I'm no lab rat.

I lay down on the hospital bed and had them put the tray in such a manner as to block my view of my foot. I don't think I can stand seeing my flesh opened even if there was anesthetic. Speaking of which, the application of anesthesia was the only painful part. They brought out a cartoonishly large syringe with a long needle to match. He stuck it in a place I won't mention. It stung like hell. After a while, I couldn't feel a thing, at least, until he began to work. I felt him poking and prodding so I said, "Doc, it's not enough!" So he decided to stick the needle in and inject a little more anesthetic. For God's sake.

It went by quickly, I was unusually chatty. I tend to get chatty when I'm under the knife. I remember being operated on years before. I was a blabbermouth in the operating room. I bet they were relieved when the knock-out gas kicked in.

You have to cut all the way to the nail bed in surgery for an ingrown toenail. After he tugged on some things, he showed me the bit that was digging into my flesh. It looked like a shard of glass. 

So he wrapped it up, I paid the fees and bought the medicines and that was it. The toe needed to be wrapped up when I take a bath so the doctor recommended that I buy condoms to wrap my toe in. I felt the need to inform the pharmacist that I needed the condom for my feet. I'm not sure what she made of that.

I'm just going to let my toenails grow out from now on.