{"id":13485,"date":"2023-01-04T12:26:03","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T04:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quezon.ph\/?p=13485"},"modified":"2023-01-04T12:26:05","modified_gmt":"2023-01-04T04:26:05","slug":"the-long-view-technical-debt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quezon.ph\/2023\/01\/04\/the-long-view-technical-debt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Long View: Technical debt"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/p>\n The sixth month of the Marcos Restoration was supposed to be the point when the administration could really hit the ground running, what with the First Lady busy cleaning (purging, really) the Palace of problematic appointees, an obedient legislative supermajority in both chambers of Congress delivering the first budget the President can consider truly his own, and with little discernible friction between the President and the Vice President. Even the price of populism was factored in with the please now, pay later decision to instruct PhilHealth to suspend the increase of premium rates and its income ceiling for 2023. That crowd-pleasing but future-mortgaging decision should have ensured a new year with plenty of smiles for the President, but then Naia happened. The details of this debacle are still too fresh to require restating here.<\/p>\n Just a few days prior to the shutting down of Philippine airspace, Southwest Airlines in the US experienced a shutdown of its operations in the midst of what one employee described as a \u201croutine winter storm.\u201d Despite everyone being on deck, \u201cour antiquated software system failed coupled with a decades-old system of having to manage 20,000 frontline employees by phone calls. No automation has been developed to run this sophisticated machine.\u201d The result was vividly described by the employee: \u201cThe two decades of neglect by SWA leadership caused the airline to lose track of its crews \u2026 We were there \u2026 but there was no way to assign us \u2026 And we watched as our customers got stranded without their luggage missing their Christmas holiday.\u201d<\/p>\n