My Journey in Public Service

Commencement Speech, Ateneo School of Government

August 26, 2017

Justice Antonio T Carpio

Father Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ, President of the Ateneo de

Manila University, Dean Ronald Mendoza and members of the
Faculty of the Ateneo School of Government, the 2017 graduating
class, proud family members and friends of the graduates, ladies
and gentlemen: good afternoon to everyone.

I extend my warmest congratulations to the graduates for this

momentous achievement. I am particularly impressed that you
have chosen to specialize in public governance, a subject that is
close to my heart and part of my passion. So, I thank you for
inviting me to address you this afternoon on your graduation day.

I have served in government for some 20 years, in both the

executive and judicial branches, and I have approached my role in
government as a problem solver. Let me tell you a part of my
journey in government service and the lessons we can learn from
it.

I first joined full time government service on June 30, 1992

when then President Fidel Ramos appointed me Chief Presidential
Legal Counsel. The job description of my office was a one-liner:
to advise the President on such legal matters as the President may
assign. Thats it. That meant I had no line authority, and I had to
wait for assigned work from the President.

I decided not to waste my time waiting for assignments. I

decided to help the Ramos administration make the government,

1
and the economy, more efficient. My approach was simple: to
remove legal obstacles that blocked the efficient operation of a
market economy or stymied the efficient operation of the
government. I shall mention two initiatives, which were part of the
Ramos Administrations leveling the playing field program under
my good friend Gen. Jose Almonte.

First is the telecommunications monopoly which resulted in

very poor service, requiring applicants for land lines to wait for as
long as 15 years to get a line. I proposed to the President an
Executive Order requiring the dominant telecom player, PLDT, to
mandatorily interconnect with any new telecom player that entered
the market. I explained to the President that he had the power to
mandate interconnection without need of legislation.

I informed the President that unless interconnection was

mandatory, no new telecom player would enter the market because
no one would subscribe to a new telecom company whose
subscribers could not talk to the installed massive subscriber base
of PLDT. And without new players providing competition,
PLDTs services would not improve. I also explained to the
President that domestic and foreign investors all need phone
connections within the country and with the outside world,
otherwise their businesses would stagnate, and worse, our
exporters would lose out to foreign competitors, and foreign
investors would bypass the Philippines and invest inneighboring
countries.

I remember clearly how it happened. One day the President

called me to his office and told me that the PLDT people were bad-
mouthing me. Then the President asked me: Where is that
Executive Order on interconnection that you prepared. I will sign it
now. So, I rushed back to my office to send the President the
Executive Order for his signature. And that is how we broke the
telecom monopoly. Soon, four new telecom players entered the

2
market, and they were promptly interconnected with PLDT. Some
of these new telecom players offered fixed landlines within two
weeks from application. Others offered on demand mobile
handsets for free in exchange for long-term subscriptions. The 15-
year waiting time to get a landline was obliterated by the stroke of
the Presidents pen.

What is the lesson here? There are critical bottlenecks in our

economy that severely obstruct development. Many of these
bottlenecks can easily be removed by mere executive action if
there is political will from the President. Yes, political will is
absolutely needed but unfortunately there is often a scarcity of
political will. The opening of the telecom industry in 1993 was
timely because it prepared the economy for the digital age for the
coming of the internet, the call centers and the BPO industry. The
ease of access to land and mobile lines increased the velocity of
business transactions and leveled the playing field. The fisherman
in Basilan couldcall up early in the morning his relative in the
Zamboanga City public market to find out the price of lapu-lapu
that day so he could bargain better with the middle man who would
be arriving to buy his catch.

The second bottleneck that I addressed by executive action

was the then dismal state of our domestic shipping industry. The
domestic shipping industry was hobbled by the prior operator
rule, which accorded preference to the existing operator to service
a route whenever a new entrant came in offering to fill up an
underserved demand in the route. The prior operator rule
practically gave a monopoly to the existing operator. This
prevented competition and resulted in very poor service to the
public for several decades.

I explained to the President that the prior operator rule was

not a law but merely an administrative regulation that was
originally designed to provide a sustainable traffic to shipping

3
companies that opened new routes. However, over time the prior
operator rule shielded the first operators from competition. The
first operators became complacent and their services deteriorated
while becoming more expensive. I proposed to the President an
Administrative Order revoking the prior operator rule and he
agreed. Suddenly, shipping companies entered old underserved
routes with roll-on, roll-off vessels that connected many of our
islands. Efficient sea transport between many of our islands took
off.

What is the lesson here? There are incentives designed

originally to attract investors to enter pioneering industries but
these incentives later on become bottlenecks in the efficient
delivery of goods and services to the public at reasonable cost.
The incentives become a tool by industries to capture the
government agency regulating them. Incentives can be justified if
the industry is taking baby steps, but no industry should remain an
infant forever. Incentives should always have sunset provisions to
allow competition to come in as the natural market force to provide
efficient goods and services at reasonable cost. The revocation of
the prior operator rule paved the way for a nautical highway that
would link the Philippine archipelago from Batanes to Sulo.

One bottleneck that plagued the government bureaucracy in

1992 was the inordinate delay in the resolution of administrative
cases. In the Malacanang legal office alone, the backlog stretched
to almost twenty years when I assumed office. Similar backlogs
existed in different government offices. I proposed to the President
an Administrative Order introducing two measures. First, all
parties should submit affidavits in lieu of direct testimony of their
witnesses. This would cut down the time for taking testimonies of
witnesses by at least 50 percent. Second, all parties should submit
draft decisions of their cases, and the head of office would choose
which one to adopt either wholly or partially. This would allow

4
the head of office to promptly dispose of cases submitted for
decision.

I explained to the President that this was the procedure

adopted in the United States and other countries to efficiently and
fairly dispose of administrative cases. The President signed the
Administrative Order. This allowed the Malacanang legal office,
headed by then Assistant Secretary Renato Corona whom I
recruited to join the Ramos Administration, to wipe out the almost
twenty years of backlog of cases in the Malacanang legal office.
Commissioner Vicente Veloso of the NLRC later told me that
without the Administrative Order, the NLRC would not be able to
cope up with the massive number of labor cases that are filed every
year before the NLRC.

What is the lesson here? We do not have to reinvent the

wheel. The problems of our government bureaucracy are likely
not unique to the Philippines. Governments of other countries
have faced them and have instituted solutions, some successfully
and others unsuccessfully. We can learn lessons from these
successful and unsuccessful solutions and craft our own solutions.

The Ramos Administration addressedone long-festering

social problem with rather mixed results. One day the President
sent me a note to puta stop to jueteng, the illegal numbers game.
So, I called up then NBI Director Epimaco Velasco for a list of all
jueteng operators. Director Velasco told me that cases had already
been filed against many of the jueteng operators but they were all
given bail and the cases were languishing in the courts. The
penalty for jueteng was also very light. I realized that filing
criminal cases against jueteng operators would not put an end to
jueteng in the country.

So, I studied how other countries tackled the illegal numbers

game. I found out that many countries introduced the state lottery

5
to compete with and finally eliminate the illegal numbers game. I
also studied the possibility of legalizing jueteng but I found it
impossible to legalize jueteng. Jueteng is inherently and
fundamentally a fraudulent game. In jueteng, the total prize money
is not fixed and could exceed the total amount of the bets. The
winning combination and sequence of numbers could win800
times the amount of the bet of the player. If a large number of
players bet on the same correct combination and sequence of
numbers, the payout would be 800 times the total bet on the
winning combination and sequence, and the jueteng operator
wouldnaturally go bankrupt. That is why the jueteng operator has
to rig the game so he would not go bankrupt.

In lotto, the total prize money is fixed and is only a

percentage of the total amount of bets, say 35 percent. If several
players chose the same winning combination and sequence of
numbers, they simply divide among themselves the fixed prize
money. The lotto operator could never go bankrupt and has no
reason to rig the game.

I explained this to the President and recommended that the

PCSO put up a state lottery to compete with and eliminate jueteng.
The President agreed and thus the state lottery was born. The
PCSO televised the drawing of the winning numbers to show that
human hands never touched the balls with the winning numbers.
This contrasted with jueteng where the public never see how the
winning numbers are drawn.

The PCSOslottery was successful in eliminating jueteng in

Metro Manila but in the provinces the results were mixed. In
towns where the mayors issued permits to lotto outlets, the lotto
gained market share against jueteng which greatly declined.
However, many town mayors refused to give permits to lotto
outlets in their towns and the people could not buy lotto tickets. In
those places, jueteng continued to flourish. What the PCSO did

6
was to directly open PCSO lotto outlets in those towns because the
PCSO, being a government agency, need not secure a mayors
permit to open an office anywhere in the Philippines. But it is
always an uphill battle fighting the town mayor.

What is the lesson here? Again, we need not reinvent the

wheel in solving similar problems that other countries have already
successfully solved. However, there are cultural and political
nuances present in our society that could prevent an immediate
successful transplant of the solution to the Philippines. Obviously,
the jueteng operators in this country have become so influential in
local politics that many mayors dare not go against them. We can
counter this through massive education. The schools, public and
private, should incorporate in their curriculum materials explaining
why jueteng is a rigged game, an elaborate and devious scam, that
sucks the last centavo from the poorest of the poor in our society. It
is really a pity that jueteng operators continue to prey on the
poorest sector of our society. Let the school children echo this to
their elders. So, the jury is still out whether the state lottery can
finally eliminate jueteng nationwide.

Ever since I joined the Court in 2001, I have tried to convince

my colleagues in the Court to adopt at least the affidavit rule in
lieu of direct testimony in direct examinations before trial courts.
This would reduce trial time, which could stretch from 3 to 5 years,
by at least 50 percent. I could not convince my colleagues until I
became Acting Chief Justice in 2012, or a decade after I first
brought up the idea. That is how we finally adopted the Judicial
Affidavit Rule. The private practitioners are very happy with the
Judicial Affidavit Rule because it has significantly speeded up the
resolution of cases in trial courts by at least 50 percent. In
contrast, the Government prosecutors have resisted implementation
of the Judicial Affidavit Rule because getting the affidavits of all
their witnesses before the start of the trial entailed a lot of work.
We granted the government prosecutors an extension of time to

7
implement the Judicial Affidavit Rule. Happily, they have now
agreed to implement the rule.

What is the lesson here? There are some institutions that are
slow to adopt reforms, and because judiciaries operate on
precedents, they are not always in the forefront of reforms. But
one should never give up because one day the logic of the situation
will make reforms inevitable. In the case of the Philippine
judiciary, the ever-growing population, with the corresponding
increase in court cases, is forcing the judiciary to be more receptive
to novel reforms. The ideal judge to population ratio is 1 trial
judge for a population of 20,000. The ratio in the Philippines is one
trial judge for a population of 58,000. Budgetary constraints
prevent us from reaching the ideal ratio. So, our trial courts will
always be overloaded with cases. The solution is to make trial
courts more efficient by simplifying procedures. The Judicial
Affidavit Rule is an example of this solution.

Finally, as the writer of the decision in the Magallona v.

Ermita case that upheld the constitutionality of the 2009
amendment to the Baselines Law, I realized that the Philippines
could lose a great part of its vast Exclusive Economic Zone in the
West Philippine Sea to China, including all the fish, oil, gas and
other mineral resources within this vast EEZ. China wants to grab
80 percent of our Exclusive Economic Zone in the West
Philippines Sea. What is at stake in this dispute is a maritime area
as large as the total land area of the Philippines either we keep
this huge maritime area or we lose it to China forever. The
Philippines is of course no match to China militarily and
economically. So how do we defend and protect our EEZ against a
hegemon like China?

In 2011, I started a public advocacy that in the defense of

the West Philippine Sea the Philippines should use the greatest
weapon ever invented by man a weapon that could neutralize

8
warships, warplanes, missiles and nuclear bombs and that
weapon is the Rule of Law. I proposed that the Philippines file an
arbitration case against China before a tribunal of the UN
Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS. We would bring
China to a forum where there is a level playing field where the
dispute would be resolved solely in accordance with the Law of the
Sea.

In January 2013, the Philippines filed the arbitration case

against China. On July 12, 2016, the arbitral tribunal declared that
Chinas nine-dashed line was without legal effect and could not be
the basis to claim any part of the South China Sea. The tribunal
awarded to the Philippines a full 200 NM Exclusive Economic
Zone in the West Philippines Sea, except for the 12-NM territorial
seas around the disputed islands and rocks above water at high
tide. Our EEZ in the West Philippine Sea, net of these disputed
territorial seas, is some 376,000 square kilometers of maritime
space, larger than our total land area of 300,000 square kilometers.
By any yardstick, it was an overwhelming victory for the
Philippines. It was also the most important case on the Law of the
Sea decided by an international arbitral tribunal.

We have won a great victory but there are now forces in our
midst that threaten to help China snatch defeat from the jaws of the
hard-won victory of the Filipino people. The Philippine
Constitution mandates that the State shall protect the nations
marine wealth in its xxx exclusive economic zone. The
Philippine State comprises the Filipino people, its government,
territory and sovereignty. In effect, the Constitution is sayingthat
the Filipino people must protect the rich resources in the nations
Exclusive Economic Zone. I earnestly urge you, the graduates, in
whatever way you can, to do your constitutional duty to protect our
EEZ in the West Philippine Sea.

9
 What is the lesson here? We must rely on the Rule of Law
to maintain peace and stability on our planet. For states that are
small, or do not have the military might or nuclear bombs to
defend themselves, but are unfortunately bound by geography to
live with a giant, powerful and nuclear-armed neighbor, their only
salvation to remain sovereign and independent is the Rule of Law.
We must learn to cherish the Rule of Law, which ensures equality
between small and big states, and between weak and strong states.
The Rule of Law is the oxygen that allows countries like the
Philippines to breathe and survive as a sovereign nation.

I end here my narration of some of my experiences, and

lessons learned, through my two-decade journey in public service.
I hope that I have inspired you that there are solutions even to the
most intractable, insurmountable and age-old problems facing our
country. All it needs is the correct diagnosis, a practical and
workable solution, perseverance, courage and a lot of political will.

Thank you for your patience and kind attention.

Once again, congratulations to the graduates, and Godspeed.

10