by Nicasio Angelo Agustin
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo signed into law RA 9996, “An Act Creating the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), Defining its Powers and Functions, Providing Funds Therefor and For Other Purposes” or the “MinDA Act of 2010” on February 17, 2010.
I am quite sure that the Mindanaoans are happy and excited over this new development. With the Act, the MinDA is vested with enough powers and authority to set the development direction of Mindanao. Among others, it can now consolidate efforts of various sectors and entities to address pressing issues and concerns of Mindanao, and can now ensure a more coordinated and integrated approach in implementing solutions and interventions, which will, hopefully, accelerate socioeconomic growth in the whole island region.
If it wants to succeed, MinDA has to draw a lot of lessons on how to do things right and on how to accomplish its development mandates from the experiences of its immediate predecessor, the Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCo), and previous development bodies in Mindanao. While the waiting is now over, the MinDA has to face the challenges that lie ahead. With the transformation of MEDCo to the MinDA, the expectation on what the MinDA can deliver – different from that of the MEDCo – is downright enormous. This makes the coming months and years very exciting and challenging to the MinDA – particularly to its Board and its technical staff.
Yet, the MinDA should find solace in the fact that, through the years, MEDCo paved the way. MEDCo forged alliances and networks with partner-agencies and cooperating institutions; it served the many and diverse interests of its multitude of stakeholders, secured economic opportunities for its growing population, and has gone a long way in representing Mindanao in the national and international arena. MEDCo provided opportunities to build its pool of resource people, experts and technical personnel capable of manning the newly-established MinDA.
The clamor for a “permanent” and fully legislated authority that is MinDA has been realized with RA 9996. Yet, the question that may be raised now is “would there be any difference between MEDCo and MinDA beyond the name of the agency?” There are two levels of answers, one external and the other internal — but both have far-reaching development implications and outcomes. On the external, the difference could be on how well the agency takes advantage of its new powers and authority to deliver its services. If MinDA continues to do all the things that MEDCo was doing and nothing more, then it’s the same old dog with a new collar. On the internal, it is now an opportunity for MinDA to compensate its loyal servants – its competent and highly-trained staff – with a sense of employment security. With the security of tenure that they now possess under the MinDA Act, the staff of the then MEDCo – who are considered the cream of the crop – will no longer fear the prospect of losing their jobs year in and year out as they render their services on a yearly contractual basis. This kind of employment status has forced a lot of these talented young professionals to leave the MEDCo – in the past, personnel turnover was a major setback for the MEDCo. Continuity and normalcy of operation, particularly in accomplishing its tasks, were difficult to attain; likewise, retraining and capability build up for new staff became too costly and, to some extent, very impractical.
The challenge now is for MinDA to respond to what is expected of it, but I know that the MinDA management and staff are very aware of, and ready for, these. Just a piece of advice: MinDA should learn to unlearn the mistakes of the past, assert its leadership over Mindanao and its role in BIMP-EAGA, and quickly move on to embrace the now broader and wider scope of its new identity with a lot of passion and responsible discretion.
And as for us – the business sector, development institutions, communities and all those who have a stake in Mindanao: let us generously show our support in every way we can to help make the MinDA succeed for Mindanao’s development’s sake. It will be a long journey as the agency will have to go through several stages of “maturity”, but hopefully, Mindanao will finally get to fulfill its promise.
And it’s about time, too.
Feel free to send your comments to nic_agustin@yahoo.com.
