A must-follow Musk

 

DOGE's Elon Musk

"A must-follow Musk" was also published by The Manila Times on 19 February 2025.

Elon Musk heads the novel United States government's Department of Efficiency (DOGE). He is on a mission and by all accounts appears determined to cut his government's spending down to a bloody pulp, leaving what he deems as non-essentials gasping for air. Having the distinction of being the world's wealthiest individual is immaterial to how he carries out his tasks, I suppose, except that the world listens to what he says. While some people talk and others produce, he does both; that’s the difference between the one who is sensible and the other who is an idiot.   

What has he done so far?

On DOGE’s directive, the Office of Personnel Management has sent “a fork in the road” letters to some two million federal employees asking them to voluntarily resign. The blood-letting assault initially targets those with little or no job security. In Dubai last Thursday, February 13, Musk remotely told participants in the 2025 World Governments Summit that he was "helping 'America, Inc.' engage in a sort of 'corporate turnaround' that should include deleting entire agencies."

He further said that "it's kind of like leaving a weed: If you don't remove the roots of the weed, then it's easy for the weed to grow back. But if you remove the roots of the weed it doesn't stop weeds from ever growing back, but it makes it harder."

First to go was US Agency for International Development (USAID), the soft component of the US strategy for promoting its imperialist hegemony. More agencies suspected of heavily losing public funds to fraud are under scrutiny. USAID contracts have been summarily terminated, risking a flurry of suits from aggrieved parties. Already, a District of Columbia judge has issued a temporary restraining order that lifts the ban on disbursement of USAID funds for programs that existed before the Trump administration assumed office on January 20, 2025.

In less than a month, Musk's cost-cutting rampage has reportedly generated more than a billion dollars in savings for the US government. DOGE twitted on 29 January that "...85 DEIA related contracts totaling ~$1B have been terminated” in at least 25 federal agencies.

What Musk has shown with his actions is sensitivity to taxpayers. Somebody like him is what our country needed ages ago. The need for efficiency rises by the hour, given how the government limps under the weight of deficit spending and a mood-meter hitting at a high of 61-percent debt-to-GDP ratio. An indicator of a country’s ability to service its debt, that ratio has averaged 55 percent from 1990 to 2022.

Musk is antidote to political patronage and offers a must-follow template for Philippine politics that for so long has been exploiting government spending for partisan political ends. How malignant the political culture is becomes evident when weeds sprout in the bureaucracy. A quick example is the 315-member House of Representatives with nine deputy speakers. At least six of these deputies can be excised like an appendix without compromising the overall well-being of the institution, generating millions of savings for the taxpayer.

Another example, distant yet relevant, would be the establishment of over 200 government corporations during the rule of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Most of these state firms hardly performed; they neither addressed the problems for which they were created nor generated profits for the government. But they built lasting vestiges of patronage, paying dividends decades later when members of his family recaptured the political glory they temporarily lost. His son, Bongbong Marcos Jr., eventually rose to become president, matching the level of success his father achieved.      

When Cory Aquino rose to power following a peaceful revolt that ousted Marcos Sr. in 1986, she offered early retirement benefits for those who wished to resign in ways that are similar to what Musk is doing now. The aim was two-fold: generate savings for a bankrupt government and trim the bureaucracy of its excess fat.  

The Aquino cost-cutting initiatives did not attract a following, however, as succeeding governments allowed the weeds Musk is wary of to grow and regrow. Under the Department of Agriculture (DA), we have bureaus of plant industry, animal industry, a national dairy industry, a carabao center, a rice research institute, a national food authority, among a bunch of other attached offices, and yet we import heavily on rice, beef, livestock, dairy, and other agricultural products. It is time for a Musk-like surgery involving agencies that do not deliver.

The Department of Public Works and Highways depends on private contractors to get its job done.  Why not abolish it, hire a fraud-free procurement agent, and let local governments supervise the works?

Exploiting the bureaucracy for political patronage is perhaps less of an issue than ensuring the optimal use of taxpayer’s money, given that automation offers government opportunities to make its operations more efficient. The city government of Manila maintains hundreds of politically appointed personnel in its payroll, and many of them are tasked with keeping the records for its elderly constituents. Yet in more than three years of my being enrolled as one of Manila’s senior citizens, I have been deprived of benefits because city hall records are deficient. In a street intersection in Makati City, a swarm of city government personnel apprehended a solitary jaywalker (who happened to be me, having crossed one-fourth of Gil Puyat Avenue away from the designated pedestrian lane).

The twin goal of service delivery and of rewarding partisan supporters with public funds entails opportunity costs by which taxpayers can only hope they are served in some other way. Makati deserves credit for championing anti-jaywalking, but Manila, for its bum records in the age of digitalization, simply sucks. 

Let the politicians win the vote. But here’s hoping that, armed with an electoral mandate, they follow Musk’s lead to make the taxpayers happy. Management guru Peter Drucker once said that “management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” Government is called upon not only to be efficient but to be effective as well.