January marks the sixth month in office of President Rodrigo Duterte. Six months, which was - at least during the campaign - supposed to be a major milestone in his term. Among others, he had promised (don’t we still remember?) to be done with the drug menace that holds our country in its grip. “Mark my word”, he told us time and time again - all i need is six months and the problem is solved.

It turns out - as it often does - that much more time, effort and energy, if not in fact thinking - is needed to address the major problems of State. PD30’s “six months” promise would not be the first time that a president-as-candidate would have underestimated the task ahead, nor would he be the last. (Donald Trump comes to mind!) What only made this specific candidate’s campaign promises so remarkable is that were so controversial - and in part that controversial nature is what made the campaign and the candidate so attractive to voters seeking radical change.

Six months into the six years of DU30 and much remains of the hopes of the millions who cast their ballots for him. Expectedly, his critics abound - they are of course in the main those who didn’t vote against him, those who cast their lot (their political and financial fortunes!) behind others. But many others may have not voted for Duterte but were - and still are - willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and wish him success. For it is true that whether or not you were for him, should be fail, we all do.

I didn’t vote for the man, but just as everytime that the eventual winner was not someone I voted for I have always aspired to just see one thing happen - that government work. And that’s because it matters to me -- and more than me to tens of millions of other Filipinos also if not more so -- that government is able to deliver its side of the social contract so that the rest of us could do our thing as our part of that contract.

Last week I finally got my plastic Driver’s license. It’s been over four months -- a wait that resulted in my almost not being able to get a rental while traveling in the United States last November. The inability of government to deliver on plastic licenses became a major achilles heel of the previous administration, and rightfully so; if something as predictable as the pace of renewal of driver’s licenses (which have fixed validity mind you) cannot be planned and prepared for, then how can we expect government to be able to plan and prepare for the unexpected?

Is this a thing of the past? Will something like this never recur in the next five and a half years? If DU30 could deliver on that then many of those who didn’t vote for him would begin cheering him on.

One last thing: time and time again DU30 the candidate kept referring to the “Davao experience” wherein the period for waiting for government to release licenses and permits and all were cut to the barest minimum. Again, this was a plank that received widespread attention and was the reason why many cast their lot with the candidate. How true is this so far for the national government as a whole?

Except for my experience trying to settle my father’s affairs after his death I really don’t have much to talk about, but even in my own experience there is a lot that yet needs to be done to make government really work at the front lines. Too often, when signatories are unavailable, everything stops -- be this at the BIR Region office or a municipal assessor’s office; maybe it’s a “power” thing that there seems to be no “delegation of authority”, a major part of our “business continuity” processes when I was still with a multinational beverage company. Why can’t government adopt that?

Or take the DENR audit - multiple audits in fact - of the mining industry. They began in July and repeated in August and even in September. It’s already mid January and where are the results? And I thought we would be more like Davao?

When government works, people are happy.

When government doesn’t work, heads should roll. And I’d be happy to catch one or two!

-Jose Bayani Baylon