There are no mongols in government offices.

In many places mongol has attained generic status. It means pencil just the way that xerox means photocopy even if you are using Minolta or pentel means marker pens even when the brand is Pilot.

But there are still pencils in government offices but no more Mongols. And the reason is the procurement law (RA 9184). The law has a noble intent: to eradicate corruption related to procurement in government offices. But as things stand, devious people can get around it for big ticket items.

For procurement officers and end-users who abide by the law and whose procurement requirement is small it can mean substandard supplies and equipment. It means pencils that break easily and equipment that do not deliver the quality they want.

The implementing rules of the procurement law require government offices to procure their supplies from the Dept. of Budget and Management if they have them on stock. DBM stocks the cheapest items from the suppliers, usually China-made. Of course there are quality products from China but they cost more. Mongols, too, are pricier pencils.

When our office was procuring a multi-media projector two years ago I was asked to submit the specification. But specifying a brand is not allowed. Naturally we wanted the projector that could deliver the highest quality within the approved budget. We asked local suppliers to demo their top of the line items. We found one brand's model that was just introduced. It exceeded all our specifications but it was priced higher than our approved budget. However, as a promotional offer the dealer offered to match our approved budget.

But we could not justify getting it because a Manila supplier submitted its quotation for a Mitsubishi projector via the GEPS at a much lower price and the projector met the minimum required specifications. When it finally arrived from Manila we found its image quality a big letdown. I hated using that projector ever since.

What you get from the DBM warehouse, aside from substandard pencils, are glues that do not stick and marker pens (sorry no Pentels nor Pilots) that dry up fast. And our end-users shudder at the thought that we will be forced to buy our electric fans from DBM soon.

In fairness to to the fine guys at DBM, I know they despised the way they are fast becoming sales personnel.

So do not expect to see Mongols in the fingers of pencil pushing bureaucrats.

Paul Krugman on his Philippine stint

Paul Krugman has something to say about the Philippines. Depending on one's mood at the time or one's political leaning, he could be just attempting to be funny or was satirical.

But the comment in poetic form by Arjun Janah is worth reading. It is simply about experts foisting their expertise on other people. Instead, they ought to learn from the people.

That is how great teachers ply their craft. They learn from their students. They learn what their students needed to learn.

A dialogue with a Nobel Laureate

Yesterday, Feb 8, in the afternoon I attended a dialogue with Nobel Laureate for Economics Finn E. Kydland at the University of San Carlos. The place was the auditorium of the new Law and Business School of USC. Nice place, clean men's room (do I need to point that out?).

Prof. Kydland's hour-long presentation was entitled "Peace & Economic Development in the Era of Globalization". I like his sparse Powerpoint presentation because it did not distract from his speech. The foundation of his speech was of course the idea that won him and Ed Prescott the Nobel in 2004. This idea is that time consistency of policy will result in development. His comparison between what happened in Ireland (from very poor to being rich) and Argentina (previously rich and now poor) was very interesting.

One thing I don't like about open forums is that some people preface their questions with long presentation about themselves before shooting their question. It eats into the time. Yesterday was no different. Only seven persons dominated the forum. One professor wanted the speaker to explain some topics not in his presentation.

The briefest question was from a man who said he lived in Ireland when it was very poor and in Argentina when it was still rich. Then he asked whether it was the EU subsidy that propped up Ireland. Prof. Kydland in effect said that any subsidy going to Argentina wold have evaporated in no time at all. It is the time consistency of policies that can make a difference.

Kydland and Prescott's winning paper on "Rules rather than discretion" is available here .

Prof. Kydland concluded his presentation with a quote from the book "Barriers to Riches". It would be nice to have a copy of the book. But the original paper is available here.

Back to blogging

My last blog at http://rankm.blogspot.com was dated October 15, 2006. I have to create another blog because I do not have anymore editorial access to my site.

When Blogger updated its services in 2006 something went wrong with my account. Somehow my password would not match anymore. And Blogger would advise me that my original password was sent to my account at lycos which was the e-mail account I used when first creating a blog account. This was before there was any gmail. But my Lycos account was long ago suspended for disuse.

We have upgraded our home DSL to 512kbps. Altho my top speed is still well below that despite several complaints and follow-up. But that will be the subject of another blog.