Finding the good in government

Carelle Mangaliag

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There are thousands of government employees out there who truly serve

Serendipity sat beside me in the form of Maria Ressa during one of my flights to Manila from Cebu.  Being a fan, I was musing over this chance meeting, when I inadvertently overheard her conversation with another passenger.  It was an intelligent conversation that piqued my interest. They conversed about politics and how he, the other passenger, would never do business with the government, because of his generalization that government projects are dirty.

I politely interjected: “How do you weed out the good from the bad then? Because I believe there are people out there, even in the government, who want to do good.”

Hopeful still

Our perception is often tarnished because we think dealing with the government is always dirty or corrupt and will just be faced with so much resistance.  In my business of training, I am always asked if what we do makes a difference.  The cynics wish me “luck” when they find out I cater to government agencies.

Even if we are told how dirty it could be, how long payments are and how difficult bidding processes are, I have never lost hope.  I am hopeful that that the work we do creates a positive impact in the lives of people, making a dent to change mindsets and behaviors.

From the start though, I was wary about being offered anything “under the table,” half expecting someone to cut us a “dirty” deal.  My company went through a long and tedious process and won the bid for the customer service training of a government agency.  We abided by the rules and processes.  Both parties did what was right cleanly and correctly.  No bribes were exchanged and the process was not dirty at all.

I shared this story with a friend working for the government.  After hearing what we had to go through to do it right, he was reduced to tears.  He said, “Thank you for giving us the chance to do it right.”

Doing work for the past few months with this agency was not easy. It’s tough to speak to crowds with such a deeply ingrained culture – a frustrating mix of entitlement and resistance to change. 

We are faced with a lot of anger and disapproval.  One participant screamed at one of my trainers saying, “’Yung pera na para dito sa training, sana sa amin na lang binigay!” (The money spent for this training should be given to us instead.)

And yet, class after class, something amazing would happen. We would see change. The same person who complained said: “Hanggang saan ang maaabot ng pera kung hinati-hati natin, eh ang natutunan natin, ginagawa akong mas mabuting tao para sa pamilya ko, hindi lang sa trabaho.”  (What would the money amount to if we just divided it amongst ourselves? What we learn here makes us better persons.) One individual hugged us and said, “Hindi ko kayo makakalimutan.  Binago niyo buhay ko.” (I will not forget you. You’ve changed my life.)

Lack of resources

These breakthroughs validate why we worked so hard to provide this training to government agencies. We pursued avenues to bring this to public school teachers, the police, and grass root levels for communities, local government and the public sector.

We believe that people are just doing the best they can with what they have. We have always believed this:  Walang bobo.  Walang tamad.  Kulang lang ng resource. (There are no dumb people or lazy people. They just lack resources.)

I am hopeful that we can affect wrong beliefs and programs by providing quality training to a much avoided demographic so that they too can learn how to communicate better, provide better service, or be more effective thinkers.

Thirst for change

What we have seen are people who thirst for change. They want to be inspired. They see the wrong around them and have accepted the wrong as a norm in their organization but don’t want that to be the norm. They want to change it. They are unheard voices because the wrong, the bad, seem to speak louder than the good.

There are thousands of government employees out there who truly serve. Not all of them go on two-hour lunch breaks and create one memo a day as their only work output. Although I still see this in other agencies, I applaud those who do what is good and even, most times, do something amazing! They’re not people who just complain about the bad without doing anything good.

Curse or opportunity?

We are inundated, almost on a weekly basis, with news of the Napoleses, the Revillas, the Estradas and Enriles.  There are those who have come to believe that our condition of corruption has become an inescapable curse. I too share this frustration. As some have turned jaded and refuse to help because they think it’s pointless.

But maybe I am foolish in thinking that we do can actually make a difference. Maybe I am stupid enough to think that we can make the world a better place.

I am always inspired with this video we show in our trainings.  It’s an Indian ad with a boy standing in front of a huge trunk blocking the road.  There is traffic and people are waiting for someone to move that trunk. There are people complaining about the traffic, and others just look on while this kid, this stupid kid, starts pushing the trunk. It starts to rain but he keeps on pushing. Other kids join him, laughing and pushing while everyone else looks on in disbelief. Some come down from their vehicles and start pushing until more and more people push and that entire trunk is lifted from the road.

It may seem so futile to believe in the good and make their voices louder than the bad.  The bad things we hear should not stop us from believing in the good, and to ask ourselves, what good have we done to make a difference. – Rappler.com

Carelle is one of the country’s pioneer NLP Trainers, and a member of the International Trainers Association of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (ITANLP). She is the President and CEO of Trainstation Manila, Hong Kong & Singapore.  

 

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