“A policymaker is cursed to live in the second-best world,” warned Chatib Basri, the former finance minister who prefers to be called Dede (‘without Pak, please!’), as he has reminded me more than once.

Anyone who studied economics or public policy understands this: at its core, public policy is about tradeoffs. When faced with Options A and B, choosing one means letting go of some degree of opportunity cost. The discipline is all about minimizing this ‘loss’ across scenarios. For example:

• Should a government increase the number of sugar imports? Hold off, and domestic prices spike, leaving households squeezed and headlines unforgiving. Act too quickly, and the imports flood a market that didn’t need flooding, hollowing out local farmers.

• Technology C or W for a digitalization program? Option W avoids locking in annual subscription costs but demands a steep upfront price. Option C spreads the cost over time but ties the agency to a vendor for years.

• Should Rp 268 trillion go towards the free nutritious meal (MBG) program? For this one, I’m not entirely sure what the deliberation looked like. You’d have to ask the people in the room.

No decision can please everyone. There will always be winners and losers in any scenario. That is why criminalizing public policy decisions has a fundamental flaw: it fails to understand what public policy actually is about.

Of everything I studied in public policy school, this insight blew my mind the most. Managing something as complex and layered as national-level governance means accounting for a vast range of risks, including those that cannot be predicted at the time a decision is made.

A good decision, therefore, cannot be measured by good outcomes alone. It must be evaluated by the quality of the decision-making process itself:

1. Was it made based on the best available expertise and information at the time the decision was taken?

2. Was it made in consultation with those who would be significantly affected?

The world is puzzled as Indonesia continues to criminalize policy decisions

A policymaker is accountable for weighing all factors carefully, but they should be given room for bad outcomes.

When a legal provision is defined with rubber-like elasticity, every single decision becomes vulnerable to potential criminalization. Especially when, as we are all well aware, judicial processes are not always free from political pressure.

It’s worth acknowledging that not all cases are identical in degree:

• Tom Lembong’s sugar import case last year comes closest to a pure example. The decision he made—authorizing sugar imports to stabilize supply—was a textbook tradeoff call.

• Nadiem Makarim’s and Ibrahim Arief’s Google Chromebook case is more complicated. There are unresolved conflict-of-interest allegations that go beyond policy judgment.

Regardless, what these cases expose is a law that allows the line between administrative error and criminal liability to be drawn by whoever holds political power at the time, despite the absence of criminal intent.

Being a policymaker is a moral vocation that demands the highest level of competence. It is a job requiring genuinely hard skills, but one that is also a calling. Policymaking should be an arena filled with the nation’s best problem-solvers, with the strongest moral fiber. Criminalizing their judgment—without evidence of corrupt intent—does not invoke justice. It empties the room of anyone with the audacity to make hard calls.

So how do we prevent or punish a policy that actually harms the public?

The answer is governance. We can design processes that enable deliberation and accountability to occur before and during decision-making, rather than retroactively through criminal charges.

1. Layers of bureaucracy within the executive. There’s a reason mandates and authority are distributed across the President, ministers, and layers of civil servants below them. Those layers exist to create filters before any decision touches the ground.

2. Legislative and judicial checks and balances. For consequential decisions—like the national budget—the executive must secure legislative approval. In a healthy democracy, elected representatives have the power to halt executive policies deemed harmful.

3. Meaningful public participation. From formal mechanisms like Regional Development Planning Forums (Musrenbang) and public hearings to social media and street protests, governments should have ways to genuinely understand what the public wants—and why.

4. Capitalize on the electoral cycle. If nothing else, casting our vote is how we choose whether to continue a policy direction—or change course entirely.

I said that to my husband after watching the verdict videos for Ibrahim Arief and the prosecution’s charges against Nadiem. I cried for quite a while that night. I didn’t know why it caught me off guard because I already expected this to happen—I am not naïve about the politics of law and what is at play here.

My grief, I think, stems from witnessing the loss of humanity and agency of the entire legal system under political pressure.

I would never fully understand what incentives or threats each legal professional faces when they sit in that prosecutor’s chair or on that judicial bench. It’s impossible to know what they’re thinking, who they need to protect, or what other difficult considerations they carry.

What I do know is that millions are watching and understanding what is happening (the context beyond whether Nadiem is guilty or not guilty), worrying over the same potential injustice, while those with slightly more agency to change the outcome decided to stay put.

In the middle of all this, I hold on to a thread of hope in Josepha, the high school student from Pontianak who called out the panel of ‘expert’ judges in the Lomba Cerdas Cermat MPR. She used her agency to resist injustice.

Sometimes, what separates us as human beings is the split-second when we get to choose to let something happen or actually attempt to do something about it. Or in her case: to raise a hand, question a verdict, and try to change the outcome.

Perhaps we are all deeply invested in Josepha and Team C, because if we can’t get justice anywhere else, let us at least protect it for the next generation.

May those who still have the privilege to resist injustice keep resisting, no matter how small the space may be.

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Economists at Bank Mandiri estimate that one out of three Indonesians (86 million people) belongs to the “transitional middle class.” They’re not poor, but also not resilient enough to overcome shocks, according to former finance minister Chatib Basri, who dubbed the lower end of this economic class ‘fragile’. A job loss, for example, could instantly send them into poverty.

Between 2019 and 2025, Indonesia lost over 11 million of its lower-middle class, with only 416,000 new members in the middle and upper classes. What happens to those 10.5 million whose mobility went on a downward trajectory instead?

One might think—no worries, we have a social safety net. But what’s the catch?

The Workers Social Security Agency (BPJS Ketenagakerjaan) is Indonesia’s social security agency. It follows a provident fund scheme in which both employers and employees contribute a portion of their wages to the agency, which then manages the pooled funds through investment. In return, members are eligible for five different protections: old age (JHT), pension (JP), death (JKM), job loss (JKP), and work-related injury (JKK).

As of this month, only 30.6 percent (47.4 million) of Indonesia’s 154.91 million total workforce is enrolled in BPJS Ketenagakerjaan. This means around seven out of ten workers remain vulnerable to the sudden, unfortunately imminent threats of economic shocks, especially now as the Rupiah continues to plunge.

Unlike its healthcare counterpart, BPJS Kesehatan, BPJS Ketenagakerjaan does not provide universal coverage if a worker loses their source of income.

Despite sharing the same BPJS name, they are two separate institutions with fundamentally different problems. BPJS Kesehatan is grappling with mounting annual deficits, while BPJS Ketenagakerjaan faces the opposite challenge: a coverage gap, with too few Indonesians enrolled in the program despite the country’s massive labor force.

Without proper reforms and stronger political will, the agency will begin to collapse financially under the weight of what some see as negligence. In this edition of The Reformist, we will uncover the history behind Indonesia’s social security system and why it’s a ticking time bomb.

How it started

Before BPJS Ketenagakerjaan came into existence, there had been attempts to establish a nationwide social security system. The earliest came shortly after independence, when the infant government passed a law in 1947 to protect workers from work-related injuries and death. Little is documented about compliance during this era, but the passage of this law demonstrated that the need for such protections was recognized as a priority from early on.

Under the New Order regime, the foundations of a more systematic program emerged. Then-President Suharto issued Government Regulation No. 33/1977, which established the Workers Social Insurance (Astek) program and required all private companies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to enroll their employees. It followed in the footsteps of PT Taspen, Indonesia’s first-ever social security fund exclusively made for civil servants, established in 1963.

Astek was renamed Jamsostek after the government enacted Law No. 3/1992 on Workers Social Security.

During this era, compliance and coverage were very minimal and non-beneficial for active members. According to a 2003 report by SMERU Research Institute, only 16.1 percent of Indonesia’s workforce was covered by Jamsostek by 1998.

Both employers and employees reported unsatisfactory service, including pension payouts equivalent to just 7 percent of a worker’s previous wage and the same old, sluggish bureaucracy that delays claim requests. Beneficiaries perceived Jamsostek obligations more as a hidden tax than a safety net, making the social security system unattractive.

It wasn’t until after the New Order regime was toppled that social security reforms became a priority in political discourse.

The reforms were reflected in the Constitutional amendments:

• The second amendment in 2000 added Article 28H(3), which recognizes social security as a fundamental right of every citizen; and

• The fourth amendment in 2002 further strengthened this commitment through Article 34(2), which mandates that the state establish a social security system to preserve human dignity for all.

Two years later, then-President Megawati Soekarnoputri fulfilled this mandate by passing the 2004 Social Security Law. But its implementation did not materialize until 2011, after the Constitutional Court ruled in favor of a petition filed by a federation of labor unions. The reform finally took place through the passage of Law No. 24/2011 on Social Security Administration, transforming Jamsostek into BPJS Ketenagakerjaan.

In 2014, both BPJS Ketenagakerjaan and BPJS Kesehatan began operation. The latter saw immediate success, enrolling over 140 million Indonesians upon launch and achieving over 95 percent population coverage today, while BPJS Ketenagakerjaan lags behind.

How sluggish progress exposed glaring problems

With sweeping reforms in place, it is a shame that BPJS Ketenegakerjaan has retained the same sluggish coverage problem seen during the New Order regime. Of its 47.2 million active members, 26.65 million (56.5 percent) are formal workers, 13.86 million (29 percent) are informal workers, 6 million (13 percent) are seasonal construction workers, and the remaining 691 thousand (1.5 percent) are migrant workers.

BPJS Ketenagakerjaan today covers only 30.6 percent of the total workforce, meaning coverage has increased by only 14.5 percentage points 28 years into Reformasi. This exposes two glaring problems:

I. The neglected informal sector

Although BPJS Ketenagakerjaan is most often associated with traditional employer-employee arrangements, it also covers informal workers through a separate enrollment track. Ride-hailing drivers, small and medium entrepreneurs, food stall workers, and virtually any occupation without a formal contractual agreement fall within this category.

With over 85 million (55 percent of the workforce) working in the informal sector, BPJS Ketenagakerjaan covers only 13.89 million today. That is less than two out of every ten, whereas these informal workers are the most vulnerable to economic shocks, given their income uncertainty. Unlike BPJS Kesehatan, which offers contribution assistance (PBI), BPJS Ketenagakerjaan offers no subsidies whatsoever.

With membership strictly tied to monthly premiums, social security protection remains a privilege for the large majority of informal workers. On top of that barrier to entry, those who fail to pay their dues also lose their protection altogether.

It certainly doesn’t help that there is persistent confusion between BPJS Ketenagakerjaan and BPJS Kesehatan, as many Indonesians assume the two are the same or are completely unaware of the difference.

But it’s not that they are not trying. Under Government Regulation No. 50/2025, monthly premiums for informal workers were slashed to Rp 8,400—a 50-percent reduction from the previous rate of Rp 16,800—to incentivize enrollment. The agency has also launched grassroots dissemination programs to increase membership, aiming to reach 63 million members overall by the end of this year.

How much of that targeted increase comprises the informal sector is a test of its commitment to protecting informal workers.

II. Non-compliant employers get away with it

With around 26.65 million (excluding construction and migrant workers) of 59.93 million formal workers enrolled, more than 55 percent of Indonesia’s formal sector remains without a safety net. This is despite the 2011 law obligating employers to register their employees with the agency or risk a hefty fine of up to Rp 1 billion or up to eight years of imprisonment.

We now get to the common denominator of virtually every good policy in Indonesia: weak enforcement. But political will only explains half of the root cause. In 2021, the Ombudsman flagged BPJS Ketenagakerjaan for failing to expand membership, citing both poor administrative performance and a shortage of personnel within the Manpower Ministry to address non-compliant employers.

The limited number of labor inspectors within the Ministry of Manpower, who only operate at the provincial level, results in weak supervision and inadequate handling of public complaints. This, in turn, leads to low compliance among employers in enrolling their workers as BPJS Ketenagakerjaan beneficiaries,” said Hery Susanto, a member of the Ombudsman.

By the end of 2025, the agency’s supervisory council announced that more than 523,000 employers had yet to register themselves and their employees with BPJS Ketenagakerjaan. On top of all that, over 490 thousand of the 878 thousand registered employers (55.8 percent) do not fully participate in all five programs offered by the agency.

If the government is serious about creating a protected and strong workforce, then both BPJS Ketenagakerjaan and the Manpower Ministry must take firmer actions against non-compliant employers. Otherwise, the social security system is at risk of structural failure, which leaves everyone worse off.

The time bomb’s ticking

Without reforms aimed to address these structural challenges, it won’t be long until BPJS Ketenagakerjaan hits its ceiling and eventually implodes. In his book, Paradoks Indonesia (The Paradox of Indonesia), President Prabowo Subianto seems to be aware that the so-called demographic dividend is as much a challenge as it is a ‘bonus’.

That bonus is projected to peak in 2045, after which Indonesia’s population will begin to age rapidly. As is true in many countries that have had their bonus, failure to build during the crucial period before the peak leaves them at an impasse, trying to construct a welfare state and pay out benefits at the same time. What is unfolding in France, with its mature pension system buckling under aging demographics, illustrates this scenario vividly.

Indonesia could be doomed to repeat France’s pattern unless we begin expanding social security coverage. Reports have revealed that, in its current form, BPJS Ketenagakerjaan is on track to incur financial deficits as early as 2038, a few years before Indonesia’s demographic bonus runs its course. As the current labor force ages, many more claims will be filed for BPJS Ketenagakerjaan payouts while it remains without a sustainable financial base.

The JKM program, for example, is projected to have a claim deficit of over 124 percent and rising by 2029, while JHT—the agency’s most expensive premium, collecting 5.7 percent of a worker’s monthly salary—is facing scrutiny amid an aging workforce.

Although the program’s name of old age security suggests that money would only be paid at old age, the agency allows workers to fully withdraw their JHT in a lump sum upon resignation or layoff. In 2023 alone, more than 1 million workers withdrew funds from their JHT accounts, either partially or completely. The Ministry of Finance projects that 100 million workers will be left with no pension by 2038.

Universitas Gadjah Mada’s labor expert, Qisha Quarina, says that there is currently no “comprehensive secondary data yet measuring whether the disbursement of JHT or other benefits genuinely improves the long-term welfare of their recipients.” As it stands, the JHT program serves more as a short-term severance safety net than a long-term retirement protection.

This is all happening despite the agency also administering separate protections for job loss (JKP) and pension (JP).

Towards a protected labor force

Manpower Minister Yassierli has framed these challenges in terms that gesture at the right diagnosis—that BPJS Ketenegakerjaan must be inclusive and equitable, measured by an increase in membership. But increasing membership alone, without improving enforcement against non-compliant employers, raising mass awareness among informal workers, and revisiting the agency’s fundamental policies, can only go so far.

Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka promised 19 million jobs during the 2024 elections campaign. President Prabowo Subianto has, on many occasions, positioned himself as an ally of the country’s labor union and workforce, including by hosting his own May Day rallies at the National Monument last year and this year. But promises of job creation and rally-day handouts cannot be the end of the story.

Are you a part of the protected or unprotected workforce? What do you think about BPJS Ketenagakerjaan - and how can it be made better, in your opinion?

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Indonesia’s digital financial ecosystem is now expanding at unprecedented speed, but regulatory scrutiny has struggled to keep pace with the growing influence of social media personalities who provide investment commentary to millions of followers.

This governance gap was sharply exposed in February 2026, when the Financial Services Authority (OJK) imposed a Rp 5.35 billion fine against Belvin Tannadi, an online financial influencer, for manipulating stock prices and disseminating misleading information through social media platforms.

Investigators found that the influencer used multiple securities accounts to “pump and dump” shares of at least three listed companies, posting promotional recommendations while executing counter-directional trades and profiting from followers’ reactions. The conduct was found to violate Articles 90, 91, and 92 of Law No. 4/2023 on the Development and Strengthening of the Financial Sector (UU P2SK), which prohibit market manipulation and deceptive practices in the capital market. This episode underscores how unchecked social media influence can distort markets and undermine investor protection.

The problem extends beyond isolated misconduct. Across social media platforms, influencers routinely promote cryptocurrency tokens, speculative stocks, and alternative investment schemes, and often frame their content as “financial education” while monetizing engagement through advertising, affiliate links, or undisclosed commercial arrangements.

Retail investors, as many of them are first-time participants in capital markets, may struggle to distinguish between independent analysis and paid persuasion. In volatile markets, such narratives can amplify herd behavior and exacerbate losses. Without clear regulatory classification, enforcement agencies face difficulty determining when online commentary crosses the threshold into regulated advisory activity.

Indonesia’s legal framework for financial advisory services remains anchored in the Capital Markets Law and implementing regulations issued by the OJK. Licensed investment advisors must satisfy competency standards, ethical obligations, and fit-and-proper requirements. These safeguards exist because financial advice directly influences capital allocation and public trust. However, the regime was designed for conventional advisory firms, not a decentralized digital ecosystem where influence is algorithm-driven and monetized through visibility.

The core legal question is thus substantive rather than formal. If a person provides investment recommendations that influence market behavior and receives economic benefit directly or indirectly, should that activity fall within the scope of regulated advisory services?

If regulatory responsibility depends solely on formal titles, then digital actors can operate in a gray zone while licensed professionals bear disproportionate compliance burdens. Such asymmetry undermines fairness and weakens investor protection. The OJK possesses the authority to clarify this boundary through interpretative guidance or regulatory refinement.

Law often trails behind technological innovation and social development, resulting in delayed and fragmented regulation. Proactive measures, such as predictive frameworks and comparative studies, are essential for governing emerging innovations, particularly in the financial sector.

Regulating financial influencers

The OJK has adopted a regulatory sandbox approach, allowing new business models to be tested in isolation from general regulations, helping authorities assess potential risks before full-scale implementation. Under OJK Regulation No. 3/2024, which replaced OJK Regulation No. 13/2018, digital financial business models, processes, and products may undergo limited testing before obtaining full licensing. The challenge lies in striking the right balance between oversight and innovation.

The sandbox framework should extend beyond business models to include influencers or other entities functionally tied to financial innovation. Such an approach is critical to prevent individuals from exploiting regulatory gaps for personal gain at the expense of retail investors. While criminal provisions exist to address violations, preventive and administrative regulations are equally vital, ensuring that punitive measures remain a last resort rather than the primary regulatory response.

Comparative jurisdictions provide useful guidance. In the United Kingdom, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) requires authorization for regulated investment advice and has warned that unauthorized financial promotion on social media may constitute criminal offenses.

In the United States, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) enforce registration requirements and fiduciary duties under the Investment Advisers Act. Enforcement increasingly targets unregistered crypto promoters and influencers who fail to disclose paid endorsements. The principle is consistent: the substance of influence determines responsibility.

In China, financial advisors are overseen by the National Administration of Financial Regulation (NAFR) as of 2023, while the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) continues to supervise securities and futures markets. Regulations require firms and individuals to hold CSRC licenses, a framework that has now been extended to internet-based financial services. Authorities have introduced rules to address risks linked to online platforms, covering cross-border service provision, internet information management, and activities such as client profiling, asset allocation, and trade execution.

Indonesia stands at a regulatory crossroad. Digital participation in the capital market is expanding exponentially, particularly among younger demographics. Which is why the objective is not to criminalize online discussion, but to ensure that those who materially shape investment behavior meet proportionate standards of competence, transparency, and accountability.

A credible reform agenda should therefore begin with definitional clarity. The OJK must articulate when digital financial commentary becomes a regulated advisory activity. Disclosure obligations should apply to monetized investment content. Coordination between financial regulators and digital platforms should be institutionalized to address cross-sector risk. Trust is the foundation of the capital market, and it cannot thrive in regulatory ambiguity.

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In the high-stakes world of Indonesian public policy, a new terrifying precedent is being set. It isn’t about missing billions in classic kickbacks or suitcases of cash. Instead, it’s about something far more abstract: the criminalization of advice.

The prosecution of Ibrahim Arief (Ibam) represents a watershed moment for the Indonesian legal system. By seeking to charge a 15-year prison sentence for a consultant, a penalty far harsher than those sought for the actual government officials involved, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) has signaled that expertise is now a legal liability.

The myth of the corrupt Chromebook advice

The AGO argues that the Ministry of Education’s decision to procure Chromebooks was “wrong” and fraudulent because many regions lacked internet access. The prosecution partly blamed this on Ibam, who, as a consultant, advised that Chromebooks—along with Windows—could be used and that a device management solution is required to ensure admin control, which effectively makes Chromebooks a more competitive solution.

The prosecution’s narrative hinges on the idea that Ibam “orchestrated” the procurement of Chromebooks by “locking in” technical specifications. This framing conveniently ignores a fundamental structural reality: Ibrahim Arief was a consultant, not a government employee.

He held no executive power. While the prosecution contends that his name appeared in a procurement oversight decree (SK), Ibam’s team argued that this was done without his knowledge. In his role, he had no authority to draft final ministerial policies or to bypass state tender rules. He was brought in to discuss, analyze, and offer a technical perspective. In any functioning bureaucracy, the leap from “expert advice” to “state policy” requires several layers of official review and approval by career bureaucrats and elected leaders.

To hold a consultant criminally liable for a policy he didn’t write fundamentally misunderstands the nature of advisory roles. If a doctor recommends a treatment and the hospital’s management chooses to overspend on the equipment to provide it, you don’t arrest the doctor for “state loss.”

Furthermore, even if Ibam did vouch for Chromebooks only (red: he didn’t), and even if it ends up disastrous, it would still, by itself, not be classified as corruption in its traditional sense. A policy can be ambitious, premature, or even a failure, but under a fair legal system, corruption requires mens rea—actual criminal intent. The prosecution is attempting to redefine “inefficiency” as “corruption.” By this logic, any official who procures technology that eventually becomes obsolete, or isn’t fully utilized due to gaps in external infrastructure, could be labeled a criminal.

The legal trap: Articles 2 and 3 of the Corruption Law

This logical gymnastics is made possible by the current application of Articles 2 and 3 of the Anti-Corruption Law.

• Article 2, section 1 targets anyone who “unlawfully commits an act to enrich themselves, another person, or a corporation that may cause a loss to the state’s finances…”

• Article 3 targets anyone who, with the intention of benefiting themselves or others, “abuses the authority, opportunity, or means available to them because of their position or office…”

The “spirit” of these laws was originally intended to catch sophisticated embezzlers who are good at hiding their tracks. However, the modern interpretation has a major loophole: it doesn’t require the accused to be the one who benefited from the crime.

As long as the prosecution can argue that someone (a vendor, a corporation, or a third party) benefited, and that there was a “state loss,” the person who gave the advice or signed the paper can be held liable. In recent years, this has been weaponized to criminalize people for administrative errors or unpopular policy choices, even when there is zero evidence of a bribe.

We wrote about this previously and discussed it in greater detail.

The chilling effect on Indonesian expertise

The fallout of this case extends far beyond one individual. It sends a clear message to every tech founder, academic, and private-sector expert in Indonesia: Do not help the government.

For years, there has been a push to bring “top talent” into the public sector to help Indonesia leapfrog into the digital age. But why would any sane professional take that risk now? If your technical recommendations can be retroactively branded as “market manipulation,” and if your private assets can be targeted as “fines” for a project you didn’t even control, the rational choice is to stay away.

This creates a “fear of signing” and, worse, a “fear of advising.” We are creating a bureaucracy of “yes-men” in which no one dares to suggest a specific technology for fear it will be interpreted as a “vendor lock-in” by a prosecutor a decade later.

A call for a real anti-corruption drive

We call on the AGO to return to the actual intent of the law. Anti-corruption efforts should be about catching those who actually steal from the public purse or take bribes to influence policy or procurement outcomes, not about second-guessing technical consultations or targeting private citizens to secure a “big win.”

If there was real corruption in the Chromebook procurement—actual bribes, actual mark-ups for personal gain—the AGO should find them and prosecute the individuals who actually walked away with the money. But so far, this case looks like a desperate attempt to manufacture a narrative by targeting a high-profile name.

The alleged increase in Ibam’s wealth between 2020 and 2021 (which coincides with the Chromebook procurement period) has been clarified to be linked to Bukalapak stock, but the prosecution continued to misrepresent unrelated private wealth as illicit enrichment.

Indonesia cannot afford to lose its best minds to a legal system that treats innovation as a crime. The AGO must focus on real theft and stop the dangerous practice of criminalizing the act of giving expert advice.

The Indonesian Rupiah has been on a downward spiral in the past few months as geopolitical tensions continue to strain resources and create global instability. On May 7, it hit an all-time low of Rp 17,445 per US Dollar. Understandably, many of us are worried about an impending crisis, most especially as parallels are drawn with the periods leading up to the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, when the Rupiah hit its previous all-time low of Rp 16,800 per US Dollar.

It is therefore not an exaggeration to say that everyone was surprised when Statistics Indonesia (BPS) released its latest record of Indonesia’s economic performance in the first quarter (Q1) of 2026, showing a 5.61 percent growth (y-on-y).

How does this make sense?

BPS data clearly indicate that the strong Q1 growth stems mainly from a rise in government expenditure, which grew 21 percent compared to Q1 of 2025. In a departure from the government’s usual habit of spending most of its state budget (APBN) allocation close to the end of the year, this time the government has front-loaded its spending much earlier.

It is quite important to note that economic performance in Q1 of 2025 was unusually weak as the government had just begun its efficiency drive, which then-Finance Minister Sri Mulyani had publicly acknowledged. It’s clearly had an effect in making this year’s Q1 performance look stronger in comparison.

Looking at the sectoral picture also complicates the celebration of the Q1 growth. Accommodation and food services recorded the highest growth at 13.14 percent, which makes sense given the timing of Eid holidays and higher household spending, while mining and quarrying suffered the deepest contraction at -8.20 percent, reflecting a much weaker picture in one of our core productive sectors.

In a nutshell, the growth is, by all means, real. But the story underneath the number is far more complicated than what meets the eye.

What deserves more attention

A 5.61 percent growth rate should, in theory, inspire confidence. When investors look at Indonesia, they’ll see momentum building up, bringing in fresh capital, and eventually the Rupiah will trend upward.

… Right?

Bank Indonesia (BI) has had to intervene heavily in domestic and offshore markets, while also tightening foreign exchange purchase rules to limit speculative demand. In recent weeks, foreign capital has indeed started to return, with BI reporting roughly Rp 57 trillion in foreign portfolio inflows into domestic financial markets by the end of April. But that rebound has not been enough to erase the palpable concerns shared by many.

The picture begins to blur again as we compare Rupiah with its regional peers. The Malaysian Ringgit, Thai Baht, and Singapore Dollar have all held up despite facing more or less similar pressure points. At this point, it’s difficult not to at least assume that there’s something else about Indonesia making investors uneasy.

Fiscal credibility remains the most obvious pain point. Indonesia’s APBN deficit in Q1 of 2026 reached Rp240.1 trillion (0.93 percent of GDP), a steep increase from Rp99.8 trillion (0.41 percent of GDP) in Q1 of 2025. Finance Minister Purbaya has framed this as part of a deliberate front-loading strategy—which may be true—but we’re not sure it’s a strategy that can be replicated and sustained.

Indonesia’s tax-to-GDP ratio also remains among the weakest in the region, falling to 9.31 percent in 2025, while government debt interest payments now consume 22 percent of APBN. With such a thin tax base and concerning budget deficit, it doesn’t help that the government seems to have no serious cost-benefit analysis to weigh the trade-offs it’s prepared to make. On top of that, the government’s Q1 primary balance hit Rp 95.8 trillion, which already surpassed the 2026 threshold of Rp 89.7 trillion.

If these facts don’t worry you, we want your secrets…

Half-hearted course correction

In late April, Deputy Finance Minister Juda Agung announced that the government had decided to discontinue the distribution of the ‘free’ nutritious meal (MBG) program on Saturdays. Saving approximately Rp 1 trillion for each Saturday removed, this decision is part of an effort to “refocus” government spending while continuing to deliver “existing priority programs with greater quality and precision,” according to Juda.

But MBG is far from the only source of concern. Last month, our editorial touched on the Rp 240-trillion gamble that is the Red-and-White Village Cooperative (KDMP) program, revealing that our fiscal risks increasingly fall outside the neat boundaries of the APBN. While the government can certainly argue that KDMP does not directly burden the APBN as its financing flows through state-owned banks (Himbara) and village funds, we doubt that anyone seriously believes the government will simply let Himbara absorb potential losses on its own.

Indonesia’s economy is increasingly steered through an increasingly convoluted network of flagship programs, state-owned banks, sovereign funds, village funds, energy compensation, and politically charged lending schemes. These may be defensible on their own terms, but collectively put the extent of the government’s fiscal accountability to question.

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This is why Purbaya’s public communication mishaps matter more beyond social media memes.

While Sri Mulyani was perceived to be fiscally conservative, Purbaya is seen as more aggressive. Neither is better than the other, but we think it’s not too late to warn that managing APBN requires not only technical capacity, but also wisdom in communicating fiscal policies to the public to keep market confidence at a healthy level. Conversely, Purbaya has not showcased the same discipline. His tendency to shrug off concerns about the APBN deficit and to dismiss expert analyses may come across as attempts to stay calm when the situation calls for serious evaluation.

President Prabowo’s decision to nominate his nephew, Thomas Djiwandono, as BI Deputy Governor back in January seems to have exacerbated these concerns. While the appointment may be defensible procedurally, even the perception that monetary policy is politically exposed might have been enough to unsettle investors.

As a bare minimum, we reckon that a return to common-sense fiscal governance really isn’t too much to ask. It might not be too late yet, but only if the government takes firm action now.

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This article is also available in Indonesian here.

Back in January 2019, I was recruited as a Geospatial Information Systems Analyst at the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs. That was where many stories began, and where the work of trying to matter started in earnest. With a geography degree as my foundation, my superiors challenged my team and me to explore how far Indonesia’s national spatial database could actually be put to use under the One Map Policy framework.

The One Map Policy was, at the time, one of then-president Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s flagship programs. It brought together 85 thematic maps that could be deployed for a wide range of national purposes. We were given the freedom to think, to dig for ideas, and to ensure that the work ahead would leave a concrete mark on how government functions.

That work eventually led us to one destination: the Indicative Map of Geospatial Information Overlaps, known in Indonesian as PITTI.

PITTI is a geospatial product that flags potential land conflicts arising from overlapping land status designations and business permits. When it was first released in late 2019, it revealed something that had long been suspected but had never been clearly shown: approximately 77.3 million hectares of land across Indonesia were flagged for potential overlaps. The problems fell into four categories:

• Misalignment between spatial plans and forest zone designations;

• Misalignment between provincial and district-level spatial plans;

• Misalignment between business activities and their designated spatial allocations; and

• Direct permit-on-permit overlaps at the same location.

The problems were complex and difficult to parse. But for us, that was exactly the point. A challenge to conquer.

The map that opened a can of worms

PITTI pulled back the curtain on years of tangled land governance and permits in Indonesia. There was significant resistance from within the government itself. Many viewed the transparency as dangerous, the kind of work that stirs up entrenched interests and invites retaliation from land “mafias.” But we kept moving, trying to correct what we quietly called the “geospatial sins” of the past; the administrative failures that had seeded today’s conflicts and were holding back progress.

The consequences of land conflicts are not abstract. They show up in four concrete ways:

• Legal uncertainty over land status that locks up investment and leaves parcels idle;

• Activities operating beyond what the environment can sustain, leading to ecological damage;

• Lost government revenue; and

• The erosion of communities’ rights to the land beneath their feet.

Looking at all of that, we realized information alone would not be enough. A map can show where the problems are, but it cannot fix them. We needed policy.

The much-needed regulation

The drafting of the Omnibus Law on Job Creation, gave us that opening. PITTI was positioned as the empirical foundation for a wholesale reform of land status governance and permits going forward. Overlap became the organizing concept; the problem to be named and solved.

With PITTI as its basis, the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs coordinated all relevant technical ministries to develop resolution policies for each problem category shown on the map. Mandates were distributed according to each ministry’s jurisdiction:

• The Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs coordinated all relevant technical ministries to develop resolution policies for each category of problem shown in the map, in line with each ministry’s mandate.

• The Environment and Forestry Ministry (KLHK) was tasked with resolving community rights within forest zones and enforcing geospatially informed compliance.

• The Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning Ministry (ATR/BPN) was tasked with harmonizing provincial and district-level spatial plans and auditing oil palm plantation land titles.

• The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry is responsible for issuing mining permits.

• Other relevant ministries (such as the Industry Ministry and the Investment Coordinating Board) were in support of PITTI’s mission to streamline bureaucratic processes.

This collective commitment eventually produced several government regulations on spatial planning, forestry, and land use (PP 21/2021, PP 23/2021, PP 24/2021, and PP 43/2021) along with a range of ministerial regulations, all governing the resolution of overlapping land status conflicts.

Under the Omnibus Law’s implementing regulations, we, as the lead drafters of the relevant government regulations on overlap resolution, mandated a full restart of all spatial plans at the provincial and district levels.

Provincial spatial plans were revised from scratch to align with forest zone designations. District and city plans then followed, referenced against the revised provincial plans, so that the entire hierarchy of development planning would finally be coherent and forward-looking.

These two initial steps were the structural foundation for improving the quality of spatial planning and guaranteeing legal certainty over the land that underpins permits and investment.

Cleaning up mining and palm oil

Running alongside the spatial plan restart, another front had to be addressed: the extraction and plantation sectors.

In 2021, we initiated preparations for a dedicated PITTI for mining activities in forest zones, which revealed 4.7 million hectares of potential overlap between mining operations and protected forest areas. Working with KLHK and the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, we formulated resolution policies that ultimately led to the revocation of more than 2,000 mining permit decrees found to be in breach of existing laws. Between 2021 and 2023, the total area of mining permits within forest zones was reduced by more than 1 million hectares.

In the plantation sector, PITTI revealed that three million hectares of oil palm plantations were sitting on land classified as forest zones. The government responded by formulating a policy to claw back land from corporations (specifically in areas encroaching on conservation forests and protected forests) while mandating reforestation.

Oil palm land within production forests was redirected to state-owned plantation enterprises. One of the most widely discussed recent developments is the reclamation of oil palm plantation land within Tesso Nilo National Park, which is now being restored as a conservation forest.

Taken together, the enforcement actions in the mining and oil palm sectors represent a significant leap in Indonesia’s permitting reform, not only in terms of recovering lost state revenue, but in advancing meaningful environmental restoration.

The inevitable disruption

The Omnibus Law and its implementing regulations sent shockwaves through the business world. Corporations that had spent years profiting from the gray zones of Indonesian permitting, costing the state billions, sometimes trillions of rupiah, suddenly found themselves facing the prospect of sanctions, higher levies, and criminal liability. The anxiety was real, and in many cases, warranted.

At the same time, the bar for new investment and permits was raised considerably. Any new application now had to account for forest zone designations, spatial allocations, and all previously issued permits. This was not bureaucratic caution for its own sake. It was a deliberate effort to ensure that the overlap cases of the past — the ones that fueled social conflict, ecological damage, and investment uncertainty — would not simply be replicated under a new set of names.

Nearly 20 million hectares cleared of issues

The efforts were not in vain. Over five years — from 2019 to 2024 — the total area of flagged overlaps was reduced from 77.3 million hectares to 57.4 million hectares. Nearly 20 million hectares were cleared from a backlog of governance failures accumulated over decades. For a government that had long been accused of ignoring the problem, this was a genuine reckoning.

But five years, as it turns out, is not enough. And there is far more to go.

The end of 2024 marked the close of our chapter. Government restructuring moved the task force we had been running to the newly formed Coordinating Ministry for Infrastructure and Regional Development. The work has found a new home. What happens next is not ours to steer.

This is still only the beginning. What we can hope for is that the task force and the mission of resolving land overlap and permitting conflicts continue to build on what the five years between 2019 and 2024 made possible. Not as an ending, but as a foundation.

Read winning articles from our first Writing Competition on our site: thereformist.id. The Bahasa Indonesia series can be found in the “Insiders” section. New article every week!

Pada Januari 2019, saya direkrut sebagai Analis Sistem Informasi Geospasial di Kementerian Koordinator Bidang Perekonomian. Dari situlah bermula banyak cerita dan upaya untuk terus berdampak. Dengan latar belakang studi geografi yang saya miliki, pimpinan menuntut saya dan tim untuk mengeksplorasi sejauh mana daya manfaat basis data spasial nasional dalam kerangka “Kebijakan Satu Peta.”

Kebijakan Satu Peta, kala itu merupakan program super prioritas Presiden Jokowi, berhasil mengintegrasikan 85 peta tematik yang bisa dimanfaatkan untuk berbagai kepentingan nasional. Saat itu, kami diberikan keleluasaan untuk berpikir dan menggali ide agar kerja-kerja yang kami lakukan ke depan dapat berdampak konkret bagi birokrasi pemerintah.

Peta Indikatif Tumpang Tindih Informasi Geospasial (PITTI) menjadi output yang akhirnya kami tuju.

PITTI merupakan informasi geospasial yang menunjukkan indikasi konflik lahan akibat tumpang tindih status lahan dan izin-izin usaha. Pertama kali dirilis pada akhir 2019, PITTI mengungkap bahwa ada sekitar 77,3 juta hektare lahan di Indonesia yang terindikasi tumpang tindih. Ada empat jenis kasus:

1. ketidakselarasan tata ruang dengan kawasan hutan;

2. ketidakselarasan tata ruang level provinsi dan kabupaten/kota;

3. ketidakselarasan kegiatan usaha dengan peruntukan tata ruang; dan

4. overlap antarizinan pada lokasi yang sama.

Kasus-kasus ini kompleks dan sulit dimengerti. Tapi bagi kami, ini tantangan.

PITTI yang membuka tabir

PITTI membuka tabir karut-marutnya tata kelola lahan dan perizinan yang selama ini terjadi di Indonesia. Banyak pihak di internal pemerintah yang menentang keterbukaan informasi tersebut, menganggapnya sebagai pekerjaan kotor yang rentan terhadap perlawanan “mafia.” Namun, kami terus bergerak, memperbaiki “dosa-dosa geospasial” masa lalu yang menyebabkan konflik dan menghambat kemajuan hingga hari ini.

Bicara soal konflik lahan, setidaknya ada empat hal yang terdampak:

• ketidakpastian hukum atas suatu lahan yang mengakibatkan investasi terhambat dan lahan menjadi terlantar;

• kegiatan yang tidak sesuai dengan kapasitas lingkungan sehingga memicu kerusakan ekologi;

• hilangnya pendapatan negara; serta

• hak masyarakat yang tidak terjamin.

Memandang semua itu, kami sadar bahwa kami membutuhkan lebih dari sekadar informasi berupa PITTI: kami butuh kebijakan penyelesaian konflik lahan.

Dari peta ke kebijakan

Momentum penyusunan Undang-Undang Cipta Kerja (UUCK) menjadi tonggak penting dalam pergerakan kami saat itu. PITTI ditempatkan sebagai dasar revolusi tata kelola status lahan dan perizinan ke depan. Masalah tumpang tindih menjadi kata kunci yang didorong dalam penyusunan UUCK dan regulasi turunannya. Berbekalkan informasi yang didapat dari PITTI, bagi tugas masing-masing kementerian pun terbentuk:

• Kementerian Koordinator Bidang Perekonomian: mengoordinasikan seluruh kementerian teknis terkait untuk menyusun kebijakan penyelesaian atas masalah-masalah yang terpampang dalam peta tersebut, sesuai dengan tugas dan fungsi masing-masing.

• Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan (KLHK): menyelesaikan hak masyarakat dalam kawasan hutan sekaligus menertibkan pelanggaran di sektor kehutanan berbasis informasi geospasial.

• Kementerian Agraria dan Tata Ruang (ATR/BPN): menyelaraskan tata ruang level provinsi dan kabupaten/kota, serta menertibkan Hak Guna Usaha (HGU) perkebunan kelapa sawit.

• Kementerian Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral (ESDM): menertibkan Izin Usaha Pertambangan (IUP) Minerba.

• Kementerian teknis lainnya (Kementerian Perindustrian, Badan Koordinasi Penanaman Modal, dan lain sebagainya) turut mendukung birokrasi percepatan penyelesaian problem lahan dalam investasi.

Kepedulian seluruh kementerian dan lembaga terhadap masalah tumpang tindih dalam PITTI akhirnya melahirkan kebijakan berupa beberapa peraturan pemerintah tentang tata ruang, kehutanan, dan penggunaan lahan (PP 21/2021, PP 23/2021, PP 24/2021, PP 43/2021) beserta banyak peraturan menteri terkait yang mengatur penyelesaian konflik status lahan dimaksud.

Melalui regulasi turunan UUCK, kami selaku pemrakarsa PP tentang penyelesaian tumpang tindih pun mengamanatkan aksi restart pada seluruh rencana tata ruang di level provinsi dan kabupaten/kota.

Tata ruang provinsi direvisi agar seluruhnya mengacu pada zona-zona kawasan hutan. Setelah itu, dilanjutkan dengan revisi tata ruang level kabupaten/kota yang mengacu pada tata ruang provinsi yang telah direvisi, agar hierarki rencana pembangunan saling selaras ke depannya.

Dua langkah awal ini menjadi bagian dari kerangka untuk meningkatkan kualitas tata ruang dan menjamin kepastian hukum atas lahan yang dijadikan alas perizinan dan investasi.

Menertibkan tambang dan sawit

Paralel dengan proses restart tata ruang, penertiban sektor tambang dan perkebunan menjadi hal strategis yang harus dibereskan. Pada 2021, kami menginisiasi penyusunan PITTI Pertambangan dalam Kawasan Hutan, sebuah peta yang menunjukkan adanya 4,7 juta hektare indikasi tumpang tindih usaha tambang dalam kawasan hutan.

Bersama KLHK dan Kementerian Energi dan Sumber Daya Mineral (ESDM), kami merumuskan kebijakan-kebijakan penyelesaian hingga berhasil mencabut lebih dari 2.000 SK Izin Usaha Pertambangan (IUP) yang dianggap melanggar ketentuan perundang-undangan. Antara 2021 dan 2023, luas permasalahan izin tambang dalam kawasan hutan berhasil ditekan hingga lebih dari satu juta hektare.

Di sektor perkebunan, PITTI menunjukkan adanya tiga juta hektare perkebunan kelapa sawit yang berada di lahan berstatus kawasan hutan.

Pemerintah kemudian memformulasikan kebijakan penyerahan kembali lahan dari korporasi kepada negara, khusus untuk lahan perkebunan yang merambah Hutan Konservasi dan Hutan Lindung, sekaligus mengamanatkan reforestasi atau penghutanan kembali.

Adapun lahan kelapa sawit yang berada di Hutan Produksi diarahkan pengelolaannya kepada BUMN sektor perkebunan.

Salah satu langkah yang paling hangat diperbincangkan belakangan ini adalah penarikan kembali lahan perkebunan sawit di Taman Nasional Tesso Nilo, yang selanjutnya akan dipulihkan menjadi kawasan hutan konservasi.

Kebijakan dan aksi penertiban di sektor pertambangan dan perkebunan kelapa sawit ini merupakan lompatan besar dalam revolusi perizinan. Bukan hanya untuk mengoptimalkan pendapatan negara, tetapi juga untuk mendorong upaya-upaya restorasi lingkungan yang signifikan.

Gejolak yang tak terhindarkan

Lahirnya UUCK dan regulasi turunan terkait revolusi status lahan dan perizinan memicu berbagai gejolak dalam dunia usaha. Keresahan akan pengenaan sanksi, kenaikan tarif, hingga ancaman pidana menghantui pihak-pihak korporasi yang selama bertahun-tahun “mencuri” keuntungan, merugikan negara hingga miliaran bahkan triliunan rupiah.

Di sisi lain, proses investasi dan pemberian izin kini harus memperhatikan kawasan hutan, peruntukan ruang, serta izin-izin lain yang sudah terbit sebelumnya. Kondisi ini membuat proses perizinan dan penanaman modal semakin ketat dan tidak bisa dilakukan sembarangan, semata-mata agar tidak lagi dijumpai kasus-kasus tumpang tindih yang memicu masalah sosial, kerusakan lingkungan, dan ketidakpastian investasi yang menghambat pertumbuhan ekonomi di daerah.

Menyelesaikan hampir 20 juta hektar lahan bermasalah

Berbagai upaya, strategi, dan kebijakan dalam rangka menekan permasalahan tumpang tindih status lahan dan perizinan di atas tidaklah sia-sia. Dalam kurun waktu lima tahun, dari 2019 hingga 2024, kami berhasil menekan angka luas permasalahan dari 77,3 juta hektare menjadi 57,4 juta hektare. Penurunan hampir 20 juta hektare ini merupakan hal besar bagi pemerintah; sebuah “bersih-bersih” birokrasi perizinan yang nyata.

Tentu, untuk menyelesaikan semuanya dibutuhkan proses yang jauh lebih panjang, dan lima tahun tidaklah cukup. Akhir 2024 menjadi titik finish perjalanan kami karena adanya reorganisasi yang memindahkan kewenangan kami ke Kementerian Koordinator Bidang Infrastruktur dan Pembangunan Kewilayahan.

Ini masih awal. Semoga satuan tugas penyelesaian tumpang tindih status lahan dan perizinan di tempat lain terus melahirkan gerakan revolusioner lanjutan, melanjutkan apa yang kami jalankan selama lima tahun sebelumnya.

The strains around the Strait of Hormuz once again highlight how fragile global energy systems can be. For Indonesia, the risk is notably critical because the country consumes around 1.6 million barrels of oil per day, while domestic production has declined to only around 600 thousand barrels per day. The nearly 1 million barrels-per-day gap must then be met through imports. Instability in strategic chokepoints like the Hormuz is thus a direct threat to our energy security, not merely a distant geopolitical disruption, given our exposure to global supply routes.

It is tempting to conclude that Indonesia is facing an energy crisis. But is it really?

​Traditionally, an energy crisis is associated with visible disruptions: blackouts, fuel shortages, or soaring prices. Indonesia has experienced some of these pressures, including rising energy subsidies, vulnerability to the fluctuations of global oil prices, and increasing dependence on imported fuel, though not yet at the level of systemic collapse seen in some countries.

Today, Indonesia is facing a more subtle and structural challenge than simply a supply crisis: a mismatch between the country’s energy consumption trends, resource base, and long-term system readiness.

Indonesia’s energy challenge is paradoxical: We hold vast coal reserves (the world’s 3rd-largest coal producer) and are among the countries with the largest renewable energy potential (estimated at more than 3,600 GW, including solar and geothermal). However, we are still heavily dependent on imported oil to sustain daily economic activity.

All of this boils down to the conclusion that Indonesia’s energy problem lies in how our energy system is managed: which resources are given priority, which infrastructure is built, and which consumption patterns persist.

Structural paradoxes

Currently, Indonesia’s energy system has three structural contradictions:

First, more than 80 percent of our energy mix still relies on fossil fuels, with coal accounting for the majority of electricity generation.

Second, we import nearly 1 million barrels of oil per day, despite being resource-rich, exposing the country to global price volatility and geopolitical risk.

Last, but not least, while the country possesses immense renewable potential, less than 1 percent has been effectively harnessed.

These dynamics do not exist in isolation. They reinforce one another, forming a system that is stable in the short term but vulnerable in the long term.

Further, public discourse on energy challenges is frequently framed as a supply issue. Build more power plants, deploy more renewables, reduce imports. But this is an oversimplification of a fundamentally systemic problem.

Take solar energy as an example. President Prabowo Subianto’s ambition to develop 100 GW of solar capacity is a bold step. However, solar power is inherently intermittent, so the conversation should continue to explore how we will provide adequate grid flexibility, storage systems, and operational preparedness.

Adding new capacity alone could destabilize the very system it aims to improve. Thus, we need to focus on redesigning the system and its management when discussing the energy transition.

System readiness is a missing piece

The question is: Are our energy systems ready?

On the supply side, the bottleneck in our system readiness goes past infrastructure alone. Several challenges endure:

• Our power grid is still largely designed for baseload generation.

• Energy storage infrastructure is limited.

• Regulatory and investment frameworks are evolving, but not yet fully aligned.

• Human capital for managing a more sophisticated energy system is still developing.

However, our system readiness is also reflected in how we consume our energy.

Now, let’s talk about the demand side

In Indonesia, conversations on energy transition remain heavily supply-driven. While they are absolutely essential, they overlook a simpler yet powerful lever: energy conservation at the demand level.

Small behavioral changes can have a significant impact collectively. Something as simple as turning off unnecessary lights, setting air conditioners at efficient temperatures (24–26°C), and adopting more conscious energy use could change the way we think about energy transition, beyond the governmental agenda.

The transport paradox and rethinking the real solution

To illustrate, let’s now examine Indonesia’s transport sector, one of the largest consumers of fossil fuels.

The government has taken important steps to endorse electric vehicles (EVs) and reduce emissions. However, this raises a critical question: Does reducing emissions automatically solve our energy challenges?

In cities like Jakarta, it’s not that simple. While EV adoption may reduce emissions, it does not address the underlying issue that has long afflicted the metropolitan: vehicle overpopulation.

Policies that provide privileges to EV users, such as tax breaks and exemptions from traffic restrictions, may unintentionally favor those who can afford to buy more private vehicles. Meanwhile, structural problems remain unresolved.

If the goal is to meaningfully reduce both emissions and energy consumption, switching technologies (from coal to solar, from fossil fuels to EVs) alone is not enough.

For example, investing in accessible public transport offers a more systemic solution. Unlike private vehicle electrification, it reduces both per-capita energy demand and vehicle volume simultaneously.

Towards a complete transition

Ultimately, Indonesia should aim to transition to cleaner, more sustainable, and more resilient sources on one end and change how energy is consumed across society on the other. Otherwise, the transition risks becoming incomplete.

Reframing Indonesia’s energy challenge as a management issue leads to a different set of priorities.

In the short term, the country should improve energy security by reducing vulnerability, managing demand, and decreasing dependence on imported fuels.

• In the medium term, the focus needs to shift to infrastructure: modernizing the grid, scaling storage, and aligning regulatory regimes.

• In the long term, the goal should be transformation, in which renewable energy is not merely added but fully integrated into a resilient and adaptive system.

The question, then, is not whether Indonesia has enough energy. It is whether Indonesia is ready to manage the energy system of the future. Because the real challenge is not a lack of solutions, but the ability to implement them coherently, consistently, and at scale.

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This article is also available in Indonesian here.

“Perfection belongs only to God,” many people say. But at the Finance Ministry, perfection is one of the values we apply, translated into the principle of “continuous improvement.”

At the Echelon I level in Directorate General D, there is a foundational mindset instilled in employees: initiative, meaning the ability to solve problems and offer solutions without waiting for orders, and a corrective attitude, meaning the willingness to fix mistakes for the sake of meaningful change. It sounds like a cliché, but this is precisely what I have been trying to apply in my own unit, particularly when it comes to harnessing a new technology, let’s call it Technology U, to support one of our core duties.

In my unit, Directorate P, there is a running joke that the staff here are “illiterate,” in the sense that they work based on the experience passed down from senior to junior rather than by reading the regulations. And they are equally reluctant to commit that experience to writing. In recent years, this old habit has begun to be challenged, and I can say with some pride that I have been one of the people pushing against it.

Two dimensions of implementing technology challenges

When it comes to implementing new technology, of course, you cannot separate the political dimension, namely leadership support, from the technical dimension, such as procurement. On the matter of leadership support, many organizations adopt new things simply because a senior figure has decreed it, rather than as the result of careful study and data analysis. As for technical matters like procurement, collusion between unscrupulous officials and vendors often unfolds so smoothly that it begins to look like the natural state of affairs. The question is, how long can this go on?

Looking back a decade ago, I began writing about the use of Technology U while I was still on a study assignment. From class discussion papers and semester exam essays, it culminated in a thesis that now sits neatly on a shelf in the library of the official academy where I was studying.

When I returned to the office, I was given a mandate in a new unit, Directorate P, with the mission of bringing this idea to life, which turned out to align with the organization’s transformation blueprint. It was a major task, and I had no idea just how difficult it would prove to be.

Four years of sluggish progress

As I mentioned earlier, the political dimension looms large in the adoption of anything new, and my organization is no exception. Even though a study team had been formed and data were being collected continuously, when leadership simply ignored the work, even the best ideas only piled up in some forgotten corner of the organization.

From 2019 to 2023, for nearly four years, we crawled along at the pace of a garden snail. Until one moment changed everything: pressure from another unit within our ministry pricked the ego of our leadership. The Director, who had previously been indifferent, transformed overnight into a full supporter of the idea and demanded that we begin pilot implementation within a month. Even though we had to rush to finish the study, we eventually secured the Minister’s support as well.

The procurement battlefield

With the political side in hand, the technical challenges were already waiting for us.

Procurement in our unit, as it turned out, was not free from the grip of certain individuals who controlled vendor selection from behind the curtain. Among the dozen or so companies offering Technology U, we had to choose between vendors carrying foreign-brand products that were technically capable but threatened to blow our budget, or local pioneer companies whose prices were reasonable but whose specifications were riddled with limitations.

Fortunately, two local manufacturing companies offered a solution. They proposed using free-market components from abroad and assembling them according to our needs. We invited them to get creative, and then looked for the option that fit our budget. To make a long story short, one of the vendors, let’s call them PT Bravo, offered a package that met our requirements at a more competitive price than PT Foxtrot. At last, we had a sensible option for implementing Technology U in our unit. Logically, all PT Bravo had to do was submit their offer through the government-regulated e-catalog, and the decision maker within the ministry would select them.

The art of marking up price

Did things pan out as smoothly as my description? Of course not.

Life threw in a major plot twist near the end of the process with the sudden appearance of PT Alpha, which offered a product that was eighty percent identical to PT Bravo’s, at almost the same price. Only a few components distinguished the two offers. Even the brochure they posted on the e-catalog system was literally a copy of PT Bravo’s, with the logo cropped out and replaced by their own, along with their chosen components.

The absurd part is that PT Alpha had once submitted a proposal for Technology U at twice their current price, with one of the core components only slightly different. In their first proposal, the system they offered carried a component from a brand priced at Rp 1.9 billion. This time around, the difference was that they used an alternative component, the same brand PT Bravo was using, at only Rp 900 million.

Every other component was identical. In reality, when I checked the international market, both these components were priced in roughly the same range. Even more absurdly, when PT Alpha presented their offer to us, they pitched a completely different product, let’s call it Brand S from yet another country, priced at around Rp 5 billion.

Apparently, PT Alpha had a strong streak of mark-up running through their veins.

It sounds insane, but that was the reality. What made it more insane was that PT Alpha had often won tenders in our unit before, under various corporate identities all controlled by a single nuclear family. The father, the mother, and their two children each had their own company, and together they supplied a wide range of our unit’s needs.

You could say their character was that of a one-stop shop selling whatever the user happened to ask for. Worse still, several of my colleagues had dealt with goods procured from this strange constellation of entities, and every one of them rated the performance negatively: incomplete products, unqualified technicians, half-finished installations, even signs of contractual neglect. Yet remarkably, in administrative records, they were spotless. We were dealing with big-league players who had built a symbiotic relationship with corrupt insiders within our own organization.

A senior staff’s Hail Mary

Refusing to give up, my team and I, all of us in agreement that this rotten game had to end, set about comparing every component of the products offered by the two companies. The strangeness kept happening because every time we compared the solutions from PT Alpha and PT Bravo and identified weaknesses in PT Alpha’s components, their representatives would soon inform us that they had updated their proposal “with newer, more advanced components, at the same price.” After this happened three times, we became increasingly convinced that there was indeed a kind of “score-fixing” at work in this procurement.

Still undeterred, one of our seniors, who was fed up with these unhealthy procurement practices, handed us our ultimate weapon: the Presidential Regulation No.12/2021 on procurement. The regulation states explicitly that, beyond meeting the user’s needs, vendors must be prioritized based on their strengths in research, support for the creative economy, contribution to Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), and the product’s level of Domestic Component Content, known locally as TKDN.

Armed with this ammunition, the balance of the technical team’s discussion shifted in a way that could no longer be denied. Twelve members of the technical team could not reach a consensus until finally the team chair decided to put it to a vote.

Given the full set of facts laid out before us, it was clear that PT Bravo was decisively superior to PT Alpha, even without bringing up the potential for corruption, collusion, and nepotism, the negative track record, or the long list of other shortcomings on PT Alpha’s side. It came down simply to their inability to meet the criteria spelled out in the Presidential Regulation. The vote reflected exactly that. PT Bravo won decisively, nine votes to three.

A long way to go

Did the drama end there? Of course not. PT Bravo still had to prove that its product could live up to expectations. Our staff, the user team that had been trained, had to be ready to demonstrate their capability. Internal regulations on the use of this technology, the sustainability of its operations, and a long list of other unfinished homework were all still waiting for us.

But for now, we have offered some proof that the implementation of new technology and procurement grounded in data can still happen, even amid the stigma that adoption depends on political backing and that government procurement is often clouded by corruption, collusion, and nepotism.

Read winning articles from our first Writing Competition on our site: thereformist.id. The Bahasa Indonesia series can be found in the “Insiders” section. New article every week!

Kata orang, kesempurnaan hanyalah milik Tuhan. Tapi di Kementerian Keuangan, kesempurnaan adalah salah satu nilai yang kami terjemahkan sebagai “perbaikan terus-menerus.”

Pada level eselon I di Direktorat Jenderal D, ada dua sikap dasar yang ditanamkan pada pegawai: inisiatif, yaitu mampu menyelesaikan masalah dan memberi solusi tanpa menunggu perintah; dan korektif, yaitu memperbaiki kesalahan demi perubahan yang lebih baik. Terdengar klise memang, tapi inilah yang coba saya terapkan di unit saya, khususnya dalam pemanfaatan teknologi, sebut saja Teknologi U, untuk mendukung salah satu tugas kami.

Dulu, di unit saya di Direktorat P, ada pameo bahwa pegawai unit ini “buta huruf.” Dalam arti, mereka bekerja hanya mengikuti pengalaman senior yang diwariskan turun-temurun, alih-alih membaca aturan yang ada. Namun, mereka pun enggan menuliskan pengalaman itu dalam bentuk apa pun. Dalam beberapa tahun terakhir, pameo ini mulai didobrak. Saya bisa bilang bahwa saya adalah salah satu pendobraknya.

Dua dimensi tantangan implementasi teknologi

Bicara soal implementasi teknologi baru, tentu tak lepas dari dua dimensi: aspek politis berupa dukungan dari pimpinan dan aspek teknis seperti pengadaan. Masalahnya, banyak organisasi melakukan hal baru semata-mata karena seorang tokoh pimpinan yang bertitah, bukan karena kajian dan data. Sementara di sisi teknis, praktik kongkalikong antara oknum pejabat dan vendor kerap terjadi dengan begitu halus sampai tampak seperti suatu hal yang lazim.

Pertanyaannya, mau sampai kapan?

Satu dasawarsa silam, saya mulai menuliskan gagasan tentang penggunaan Teknologi U saat menjalani tugas belajar. Dari tugas diskusi kelas, esai ujian semester, hingga akhirnya gagasan itu saya abadikan dalam sebuah skripsi yang tersimpan rapi di perpustakaan sekolah kedinasan.

Kembali ke kantor, saya mendapat amanat di unit baru, Direktorat P, dengan misi mewujudkan implementasi Teknologi U, yang ternyata sejalan dengan cetak biru transformasi organisasi. Saat itu, saya belum sadar akan sesulit apa tugas besar ini ketika dijalankan.

Empat tahun bergerak bagai siput

Aspek politis amat kental dalam penerapan hal baru, tak terkecuali di unit saya. Meski tim penyusun kajian sudah dibentuk dan pengumpulan data terus berjalan, tanpa perhatian dari pimpinan, ide terbaik pun hanya akan menumpuk, mengumpulkan debu di sudut ruangan.

Dari 2019 hingga 2023, nyaris empat tahun, kami bergerak lambat bagai siput kebun. Hingga suatu momentum mengubah segalanya: dorongan dari unit lain di kementerian yang menyentil ego pimpinan.

Direktur yang sebelumnya ogah-ogahan menerima usulan, dalam semalam berubah mendukung penuh dan menuntut kami memulai uji implementasi dalam waktu satu bulan. Meski harus pontang-panting meminta masukan unit vertikal dan kebut-kebutan menyelesaikan kajian, dukungan Menteri pun akhirnya berhasil kami raih.

Medan perang pengadaan

Begitu aspek politis sudah dalam genggaman, perjalanan belum selesai; tantangan teknis sudah menanti di depan.

Pengadaan di unit kami rupanya tak luput dari cengkeraman oknum yang mengendalikan pemilihan vendor di balik layar. Dari belasan perusahaan penyedia Teknologi U yang tersedia, kami harus memilah: vendor produk merek luar negeri yang mumpuni secara spesifikasi namun berpotensi menjebol anggaran; atau perusahaan rintisan lokal yang harganya masuk akal namun spesifikasinya penuh keterbatasan.

Untungnya, dua perusahaan manufaktur lokal menawarkan solusi: mereka akan menggunakan komponen dari luar negeri lalu merakitnya sesuai kebutuhan kami. Kami persilakan mereka berkreasi, kemudian menilai mana yang harganya sesuai anggaran. Singkat cerita, salah satu vendor, sebut saja PT Bravo, memberikan opsi yang memenuhi kebutuhan kami dengan harga yang lebih unggul dari vendor lain, sebut saja PT Foxtrot. Akhirnya, kami punya pilihan masuk akal untuk implementasi Teknologi U.

Logikanya, PT Bravo tinggal mengajukan penawaran di e-katalog, lalu Pejabat Pembuat Komitmen akan memilih mereka.

Tapi tentu realitanya tidak semudah itu.

Seni markup harga dan menyalin brosur

Di penghujung proses, hidup melempar plot twist: hadirlah PT Alpha, yang tiba-tiba menawarkan produk 80 persen identik dengan penawaran PT Bravo, pada harga yang nyaris sama. Hanya beberapa komponen yang menjadi pembeda; bahkan brosur yang mereka pajang di e-katalog benar-benar menyalin brosur PT Bravo yang telah dipotong logonya, lalu ditimpa logo mereka sendiri.

Yang lebih menggelikan, PT Alpha pernah mengajukan tawaran untuk Teknologi U seharga dua kali lipat. Pada penawaran pertama, sistem yang mereka bawa menggunakan komponen merek Y seharga Rp 1,9 miliar. Kali ini, mereka beralih ke merek C, merek yang sama dengan yang dipakai PT Bravo, seharga Rp 900 juta. Komponen lain persis sama. Padahal, saat saya telusuri di pasar internasional, harga komponen merek Y dan merek C berada di kisaran yang serupa. Anehnya lagi, ketika memberikan paparan kepada kami secara langsung, PT Alpha justru menawarkan produk yang sama sekali berbeda lagi: merek S dari negara lain, seharga sekitar Rp 5 miliar.

PT Alpha rupanya memiliki darah markup yang begitu kental.

Toko serba ada milik satu keluarga

Mungkin terdengar gila, tapi itulah kenyataannya.

PT Alpha ternyata sudah sering memenangkan tender di unit kami, dengan beragam nama entitas yang dikendalikan oleh satu keluarga inti. Ayah, ibu, dan kedua anak mereka masing-masing memiliki PT sendiri. Mereka menyuplai berbagai kebutuhan unit kami, semacam toko serba ada yang menjual apa pun yang diminta pengguna. Beberapa kolega yang pernah berurusan dengan hasil pengadaan entitas ini memberikan penilaian seragam terhadap mereka: produk tak lengkap, teknisi tidak kapabel, instalasi setengah-setengah, hingga indikasi pengabaian kontrak. Hebatnya, dalam catatan administrasi, rekam jejak mereka bersih tak bernoda.

Kami rupanya sedang menghadapi pemain kelas kakap yang bersimbiosis mutualisme dengan oknum di dalam organisasi kami sendiri.

Senjata pamungkas seorang senior

Tak mau kalah akal, saya dan tim sudah bulat bahwa permainan ini harus diakhiri. Kami mulai melakukan komparasi mendetail atas setiap komponen yang ditawarkan kedua perusahaan. Keanehan terus berulang: setiap kali kami menemukan kelemahan pada komponen PT Alpha dan menyampaikannya, tak lama kemudian perwakilan mereka mengabari bahwa mereka memperbarui penawaran “dengan komponen baru yang lebih canggih, harga tetap sama.” Setelah tiga kali kejadian serupa, kami makin yakin: ada upaya pengaturan skor dalam pengadaan ini.

Seorang senior yang sudah muak dengan praktik semacam ini kemudian memberi kami senjata pamungkas: Peraturan Presiden No.12/2021 tentang pengadaan. Peraturan tersebut secara eksplisit menyatakan bahwa selain produk harus memenuhi kebutuhan, penyedia juga harus diprioritaskan berdasarkan keunggulan di bidang riset, dukungan ekonomi kreatif, UMKM, dan Tingkat Komponen Dalam Negeri (TKDN).

Berbekal amunisi itu, peta pembahasan tim teknis pun bergeser. Dua belas anggota tim tak mencapai kata sepakat, hingga akhirnya ketua tim memutuskan untuk melakukan pemungutan suara.

Dari keseluruhan fakta yang tersaji, jelas tampak bahwa PT Bravo unggul telak, bahkan tanpa perlu menyebut potensi KKN, rekam jejak negatif, atau seabrek kekurangan PT Alpha. Yang paling sederhana adalah ketidakmampuan mereka untuk memenuhi aspek-aspek dalam Perpres No. 12/2021. Hasil suara pun mencerminkan itu semua: PT Bravo menang 9 berbanding 3.

Jalan masih panjang

Apakah drama lantas berakhir? Tentu belum.

PT Bravo masih harus membuktikan bahwa produk mereka mampu memenuhi ekspektasi. Pegawai kami, sebagai tim pengguna yang telah dilatih, harus siap membuktikan kinerjanya. Regulasi internal terkait penggunaan teknologi ini, keberlanjutan pengoperasian, dan seabrek pekerjaan rumah lainnya masih menanti.

Tapi untuk saat ini, kami telah memberi bukti bahwa implementasi teknologi baru berbasis data masih bisa diupayakan, bahkan di tengah stigma bahwa implementasi selalu bergantung pada dorongan politis dan isu KKN yang begitu lekat dengan pengadaan barang dan jasa pemerintah.

Last year, Jakarta topped the list of the world’s most populous cities, according to the United Nations (UN), with a population of 42 million residents, beating major metropolises like Tokyo, Shanghai, and New Delhi.

But this number includes people living in satellite cities surrounding the capital. In reality, only 12 million actually reside in the administrative region of Jakarta, and the rest are commuters who enter and exit the metropolitan area daily to work. They are victims of urban sprawl, driven out of Jakarta by the rising cost of housing.

Kompas estimates the average rent in Jakarta (Rp 3.976 million) rounds up to 75 percent of the average salary (Rp 5.25 million) a worker makes in the city. For the same salaryman to then purchase a home, they would need to save 13 years’ worth of their salary without spending a single dime, according to 2025 statistics.

This reality is compounded by Statistics Indonesia’s (BPS) 2022 survey, showing that only 36.69 percent of all Jakarta households have access to adequate housing. A more recent BPS survey conducted in 2025 has even revealed that the city currently lacks over 1.39 million housing units for its citizens.

What if we told you that the city is actually not dense enough, and that there are still many policy mechanisms the provincial government can do to make Jakarta more affordable and hospitable for each one of its citizens?

In this edition of The Reformist, we go hyperlocal to cover Jakarta’s housing crisis. We investigate the outdated zoning regulations that have largely disincentivized the construction of vertical housing units, the regressive tax regime that benefits rich landowners with multiple plots of land, and how political will, or lack thereof, has prevented any sustainable housing solutions from succeeding.

Jakarta is not dense enough

In reality, the city is far less dense than it should be. Most of Jakarta’s residential land is legally barred from creating buildings over four storeys. Here is why.

Across Jakarta, housing projects must comply with the city’s Floor Area Ratio (KLB) regulation. The KLB limits the total floor area a building can have on a given plot of land, which effectively controls building height and intensity.

A 100-square-meter plot of land with a KLB of 2, for example, could have a total building capacity of 200 square meters. These 200 square meters can be distributed horizontally or vertically by dividing the building into four floors, for example, with each floor being 50 square meters large.

The higher the KLB, the more housing units can be built under a single plot of land. KLBs vary by district depending on multiple factors like land use classifications and geographical location. Areas in close proximity to public transport are given higher KLBs due to their perceived economic benefits, while residential plots are designated lower KLBs to control density and maintain neighborhood character.

The Jakarta provincial government administers these zoning regulations under a two-tiered hierarchical system. First, the overarching spatial master plan is governed by the Regional Spatial Plan (RTRW), which designates broad land-use classifications such as residential, commercial, and non-residential zones.

Second, this is then regulated at the micro level under a Detailed Spatial Plan (RDTR), which specifies the zoning of individual streets, sets height limits for buildings, determines green space to building ratios, and establishes other detailed provisions governing Jakarta’s urban landscape.

Jakarta’s RTRW is currently governed under Regional Regulation No.7/2024, whereas the RDTR was released in 2022 through Gubernatorial Regulation No.31/2022.

Under the 2022 RDTR, residential plots in Jakarta’s Very High Density Residential zone (classified as R-1) face surprisingly low ceilings, despite the name. A plot between 240 and 400 square meters in this zone is capped at a KLB of 2 with a maximum height of four floors. For plots greater than 400 square meters, the ceiling drops further to KLB 1.6 with the same four-floor cap.

According to Elisa Sutanudjaja, executive director of the Rujak Center for Urban Studies, 89.37 percent of residential-designated land in Jakarta carries a KLB below 2 in 2022. In practice, this means most of the city’s residential blocks are restricted to single-family home units that are no more than three floors on any given plot.

That said, Jakarta’s zoning regulations do contain some progressive intensification schemes. Plots of land within 1.2 kilometers of Jakarta’s major public transportation lines (Commuter train, MRT, and Bus) are given a KLB between 7 and 11 if they are repurposed for vertical housing units. This provision, however, is limited to vertical housing units, which are an entirely separate zone classification from residential plots that dominate Jakarta’s total landscape.

According to another study by University of Indonesia scholars that examines the impacts of zoning regulations on Jakarta’s property prices, raising the KLB for residential plots by just one unit can decrease housing prices in the city by 10 percent. This would provide more accessible prices for the average Jakartan.

Hong Kong, for example, is just as dense as Jakarta—if not more—but its KLB levels can reach around 8 to 10 for residential buildings. In Jakarta, the same intensity is reserved for narrow patches of land hugging the city’s main public transport lines. The rest of the capital is zoned for two to four-story development that favors the creation of single-family housing units.

Overly stringent zoning regulations in residential plots have made affordable housing nearly impossible to deliver at scale in the city.

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Is regressive land value tax to blame? Only the rich benefit from it

Apart from the need to reform zoning regulations, Jakarta remains too lax on rich landowners. At present, affluent citizens with multiple plots of land throughout the city are able to hold onto their assets without any significant economic pressure.

Jakarta’s land value tax (PBB-P2) regime remains regressive, incentivizing these landowners to hold onto their assets as the appreciation in land value offsets the losses from taxes. The PBB-P2 tax rate is currently set at a flat 0.5 percent for all land categories, regardless of whether the land is productive or idle, as regulated by Jakarta’s Regional Regulation No. 1/2024.

Compare this with Jakarta’s vehicle ownership tax (PKB). Under the same 2024 regulation, the minimum PKB rate is not only larger than the PBB-P2 but also progressive, increasing with each additional vehicle a person owns. Owning one car costs you two percent, two at three percent, three at four percent, climbing all the way to six percent for owning five or more vehicles. Before the 2024 tax regulation, owning 17 or more vehicles would’ve triggered a 10 percent PKB tax rate, so perhaps even this tax regime has become less progressive over time.

However, there have been past efforts to introduce schemes resembling a progressive PBB-P2. In 2019, then-governor Anies Baswedan increased the PBB-P2 by 200 percent for idle land to incentivize the creation of new open green spaces in Jakarta’s main arterial roads, namely Sudirman, Thamrin, Rasuna Said, Gatot Subroto, and MT Haryono. Landowners who opted to convert their land to open green spaces would then be given a 50 percent tax break for that financial year. It was either let your land sit and pay double, or turn it into a park and pay half the taxes.

These regulations, however, failed to systemically change how the city’s landowners manage their idle assets, as they only targeted a small segment of the city and lasted for only a year. Now, every Jakarta citizen is subject to the flat 0.5 percent rate.

Let’s paint a real-life example of Jakarta’s current PBB-P2 tax regime. A 576 square meter plot of vacant land is currently on the market in Menteng, Central Jakarta, described in the listing as situated in a “strategic and commercial location.” The asking price is Rp 21 billion. The plot sits in the middle of one of Jakarta’s oldest neighborhoods, an area close to every public transport option Jakarta has to offer.

After running the numbers, the owner of this Menteng kavling would pay Rp 56.82 million in PBB-P2 taxes, which sounds substantial until you compare it to what the land is actually worth.

With a Rp 21 billion asset, the effective annual tax rate boils down to only 0.27 percent of market value. Meanwhile, land prices in Menteng continue to climb at astronomical rates year after year. While the landowner has chosen to put their asset on the market today, they have already accumulated wealth far beyond what the PBB-P2 levy can do to hurt their pockets.

Real estate math aside, the 0.27 percent figure highlights the city’s regressive tax regime. Without a more progressive tax regime that directly incentivizes the construction of new residential units, Jakarta’s housing crisis will continue as supply remains constrained.

The regressive tax regime also extends to a large amount of old, unused, or idle plots of land owned by government entities like state-owned corporations, ministries, and even law enforcement bodies that spread throughout the city. These types of idle land are subject to even looser tax regulations, or even worse, exempted from them entirely.

On top of that, the recent influx of padel courts in the city can also be attributed to this regressive tax regime. With landowners having no reason to sell their idle land or use it to build residential units, they can simply wait for the next viable business venture. Padel courts today happen to be the most lucrative economic opportunity for landowners without any significant costs.

One abandoned program after the other

Moving away from rigid city policy, any reform effort to tackle this issue will never succeed without institutional continuity that outlasts any individual governor. Promises to address Jakarta’s housing are not novel. Every governor who has worked at city hall has pledged, in one form or another, to solve the housing crisis.

Before ascending to the presidency, then-Jakarta governor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo championed vertical housing as his solution to the city’s housing crisis. When his deputy, Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, took over in 2014, he continued these housing projects but drew fierce backlash for his “inhumane” relocation programs, which forcefully cleared “illegal” neighborhoods.

Under former governor Anies Baswedan, the administration oversaw the creation of dozens of vertical housing units on top of his flagship “zero down payment” housing project. He initially planned to construct over 200 thousand units, but by the end of his term in 2022, that number had gone down to only 9 thousand. Since then, subsequent administrations have effectively sidelined the program with no signs of rebooting it.

Perhaps with current Governor Pramono Anung, who has publicly stated that he would continue any good policy that his predecessors had come up with in the past, regardless of partisan lines, things might be different. The technical solutions, in theory, already exist. Every piece of this puzzle has been debated, drafted, piloted, and abandoned. The question for Pramono, and whoever succeeds him in the future, is whether Jakarta can finally build a housing institution that outlasts the governor who promised it.

Towards a more affordable Jakarta

Although Jakarta’s land area spans just 664 square kilometers, it commands a fiscal capacity unmatched by any other regional administration in the country at Rp 81.32 trillion. Yet despite the city’s vast resources, the city’s housing affordability crisis has only deepened, with land prices climbing faster than wages and homeownership slipping further out of reach for the average Jakartan.

Now, it is up to the provincial government to use the policy mechanisms at its disposal to make affordable housing more viable in the city. Just a few days ago, Governor Pramono pledged to cover tuition costs at 103 private schools. The same political will to improve the city’s education should also be directed toward reforming Jakarta’s housing policy. By doing so, the city can finally make steps to mitigate the plaguing urban sprawl phenomenon and begin housing Jakarta’s 12 million residents, or even the “42 million” figure the UN reported.

Governor Pramono and the Jakarta government must revisit the city’s existing KLB policy to allow taller residential buildings alongside a more progressive land tax regime that benefits the majority of Jakartans rather than just the affluent, reduce housing costs, and create a denser, more affordable city.

For those of you living in Jakarta or facing similar housing and livability challenges in your city, what housing reforms could help your city’s current situation?

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This article is also available in Indonesian here.

Recently, the Governor of West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), Muhammad Iqbal, has frequently used the word “orchestration” in his speeches. He uses it to describe the role of the provincial government: to be an “orchestrator” that does not merely function as a representative of the central government, but also takes on a strategic role in uniting various development resources, ranging from the central and provincial governments, regencies and cities, villages, universities, the business sector, and development partners such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs).

I think this is important for achieving effective development and well-targeted policy.

But this idea is not new to NTB. Several years ago, a similar idea was already being cooked up inside NTB’s Regional Development Planning Agency (Bappeda). At the time, Bappeda NTB was still under the command of Pak Is, a senior bureaucrat who had served across a wide range of regional agencies in West Nusa Tenggara. He initiated various programs that I later came to recognize as quite progressive, one of which was the establishment of the Partnership Program Management Unit, known by its Indonesian acronym UMPK.

When it was first formed, I thought the unit was genuinely exciting. I held high hopes that UMPK could uncover many opportunities for collaboration between the government and non-governmental organizations. Unfortunately, a classic situation that is hard to avoid in bureaucracy came to pass. After getting off to a good start, UMPK’s presence somewhat faded following a change in coordination structure.

But life has a funny way of coming full circle. For nearly two years, I watched UMPK from the outside, still holding onto high hopes for it. Then, out of nowhere, Pak Is appointed me as UMPK coordinator as he headed toward retirement.

It felt like swallowing my own words. Now I was the one carrying all the expectations I had once placed on UMPK: that the unit should be able to serve as a bridge connecting the limited capacity and resources of the government, particularly at the regional level, with the high expectations and substantial resources that our non-governmental colleagues bring, now referred to as “development partners.”

The good news is that the trend is moving in what I consider a positive direction. Development programs are now increasingly implemented by organizations outside the government. Our development partners no longer just come to criticize the government. They arrive with concrete, solution-oriented programs and significant funding they have secured from various foreign donors and domestic grant schemes.

This is precisely why Pak Is’s idea of forming UMPK as a bridge for collaboration between the government and development partners was the right breakthrough, especially given that NTB’s regional budget remains heavily dependent on fiscal transfers from the central government.

UMPK was established with five core tasks: 1) to register development partners; 2) to facilitate and support development partner programs and activities together with relevant technical units; 3) to monitor the progress of development partner activities; 4) to expand partnership networks in support of increased regional development funding; and 5) to prepare annual reports on development partner activities.

Along the way, it turned out that these tasks also supported the needs of several secretariats within Bappeda, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) secretariat and the Regional Poverty Reduction Study Team (TKPKD).

When Pak Is retired at the end of 2025, his initiative to manage collaboration between government programs and various development partner programs proved to be well aligned with the vision of the then-newly elected Governor Muhammad Iqbal.

So my hopes for UMPK’s role in NTB’s development remain alive. Now, under the leadership of a new head in NTB Bappeda, an intelligent female bureaucrat we affectionately call Bu Nelly, those hopes have not faded. If anything, they have grown stronger.

Although the unit has been renamed the Regional Cooperation and Development Partners Working Team (TKDMP), the collaborative spirit embedded in UMPK’s DNA has become a core value and a new direction for NTB. Because the new Governor carries the vision of an NTB that is “prosperous and globally recognized,” TKDMP is now involved in flagship programs with three primary goals: eradicating extreme poverty, achieving food security through agro-maritime downstream development, and building world-class tourism.

I want to share one of the flagship programs that has resonated most strongly across NTB, called “Desa Berdaya,” or Empowered Villages.

This program aims to build village self-reliance by strengthening its socioeconomic foundations through two approaches: solving existing problems and unlocking village potential. With full support from the NTB Governor, it challenges the assumption that provincial governments are rarely involved in addressing problems at the village level.

A few months ago, the NTB government held a development partner gathering forum for the Empowered Villages program. In his address, the Governor discussed why NTB remains among the 12 poorest regions in Indonesia, despite the many development partner programs that have been operating in the province for years. He argued that this is the result of a lack of orchestration, the absence of a coordinating force that enables government and non-government programs to reinforce each other and produce a comprehensive rather than piecemeal impact.

At this forum, data was collected on 52 development partners also working at the village level. So what came next? Didik S. Mulyono, a planning consultant from Yogyakarta, offered us very useful input. He suggested forming a logic model, a logical framework serving as a roadmap that explains the relationships between processes, outputs, and development impact. This framework can guide all parties in understanding how their contributions connect to the success of Empowered Villages.

The structure looks roughly like this: with this framework, all parties involved, whether government, development partners, or communities, share a common understanding of the development direction and where their respective contributions fit within it.

Identifying the gaps, setting realistic targets

One of the strengths of this model is its ability to identify gaps. At the level of human resources, for instance, interventions often stop at improving knowledge without progressing to changes in attitude and practice.

Unfortunately, many development partner programs today only address technical aspects. Without a logical framework, these imbalances often go unnoticed. It is also important to understand that interventions operating at the process level can realistically expect change only up to the output level, not directly at the impact level. This awareness helps all parties set reasonable expectations and avoid overclaiming results.

And that is the interesting dynamic unfolding at NTB Bappeda. I find it quite reformist, especially amid the growing strain on regional budgets caused by significant cuts to central government fiscal transfers to local administrations. Now, provincial governments must remain proactive and creative in finding diverse resources to keep meeting their development targets, all in service of addressing the real and contextual problems facing the region and its people.

Read winning articles from our first Writing Competition on our site: thereformist.id. The Bahasa Indonesia series can be found in the “Insiders” section. New article every week!

Belakangan, Gubernur Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB) Muhammad Iqbal sering menyebut kata “orkestrasi.” Dalam pidato-pidatonya, kata ini ia gunakan untuk mendeskripsikan peran pemerintah provinsi: menjadi “orkestrator” yang tidak hanya berfungsi sebagai wakil pemerintah pusat, tetapi juga mengambil peran strategis untuk menyatukan berbagai sumber daya pembangunan—mulai dari pemerintah pusat, provinsi, kabupaten/kota, desa, perguruan tinggi, dunia usaha, hingga mitra pembangunan seperti lembaga nonpemerintahan (NGO) dan organisasi masyarakat sipil (CSO).

Saya pikir ini penting untuk mencapai pembangunan yang efektif dan kebijakan yang tepat sasaran.

Namun, ide ini bukanlah hal baru di NTB. Beberapa tahun lalu, ide serupa sudah dimasak di Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Daerah (Bappeda) Provinsi NTB. Saat itu Bappeda masih ada di bawah komando Pak Is, seorang birokrat senior yang telah melanglang buana di ragam perangkat daerah di Nusa Tenggara Barat. Beliau mencetuskan beragam inisiatif yang belakangan saya sadari ternyata cukup progresif, salah satunya adalah membentuk Unit Manajemen Program Kemitraan, atau UMPK.

Di awal berdirinya, bagi saya unit ini keren sekali. Menyimpan harapan besar agar UMPK bisa menemukan banyak peluang kolaborasi antara pemerintah dan lembaga nonpemerintah. Sayangnya, situasi klasik yang sulit dihindari dalam birokrasi terjadi. Sempat berjalan baik di awal pembentukannya, eksistensi UMPK sedikit meredup akibat pergantian struktur koordinasi.

Tapi Tuhan ternyata seru sekali. Hampir dua tahun saya melihat UMPK dari luar dengan harapan yang tetap besar. Tiba-tiba Pak Is menunjuk saya sebagai koordinator UMPK menuju masa pensiunnya.

Seperti menelan ludah sendiri, kini sayalah yang mengemban segala ekspektasi yang dulu saya sematkan pada UMPK: bahwa unit ini harus bisa menjadi jembatan yang menghubungkan antara keterbatasan daya dan upaya pemerintah, khususnya di daerah, dengan segala ekspektasi tinggi dan sumber daya yang dimiliki kawan-kawan nonpemerintah, yang kini disebut “mitra pembangunan.”

Kabar baiknya, tren menunjukkan hal yang menurut saya positif. Program-program pembangunan kini juga banyak dilaksanakan oleh lembaga-lembaga di luar “pelat merah”. Kawan-kawan mitra pembangunan kini tidak hanya datang mengkritik pemerintah, tetapi juga hadir sepaket dengan program-program solutif dan dana-dana besar yang berhasil mereka datangkan dari berbagai donor asing maupun program hibah dalam negeri.

Oleh karena itu, ide Pak Is kala itu untuk membentuk UMPK sebagai unit yang menjadi jembatan kolaborasi antara pemerintah dan mitra pembangunan adalah sebuah terobosan yang tepat. Utamanya, karena kondisi APBD NTB yang masih sangat bergantung pada transfer pusat.

UMPK dibentuk dengan lima tugas: (1) mendata mitra pembangunan; (2) memfasilitasi dan mendukung program atau kegiatan mitra pembangunan bersama bidang teknis; (3) memantau perkembangan kegiatan mitra pembangunan; (4) memperluas jaringan kemitraan untuk mendukung peningkatan pendanaan pembangunan daerah; dan (5) menyiapkan laporan tahunan kegiatan mitra pembangunan.

Dalam perjalanannya, ternyata tugas-tugas UMPK ini juga dapat mendukung berbagai kebutuhan beberapa sekretariat yang ada di Bappeda, seperti sekretariat Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) dan Tim Kajian Penanggulangan Kemiskinan Daerah (TKPKD).

Saat Pak Is pensiun di akhir 2025, inisiatifnya mengelola kolaborasi antara program pemerintah dengan berbagai program mitra pembangunan ternyata sejalan dengan Gubernur NTB terpilih, Muhammad Iqbal.

Maka, harapan saya akan peran UMPK untuk pembangunan NTB pun masih ada. Kini, di bawah kepemimpinan Kepala Bappeda NTB yang baru, seorang birokrat perempuan cerdas yang biasa kami sapa Bu Nelly, harapan akan fungsi strategis UMPK tidak hilang, justru menjadi lebih kuat.

Meski sudah berganti nama menjadi Tim Kerja Sama Daerah dan Mitra Pembangunan (TKDMP), visi kolaborasi yang ada dalam DNA UMPK pun kini menjadi value dan arah baru NTB. Karena gubernur baru memiliki visi NTB “makmur dan mendunia,” TKDMP pun terlibat dalam program-program unggulan yang punya tiga tujuan utama: pengentasan kemiskinan ekstrem; ketahanan pangan dengan hilirisasi agromaritim; dan pariwisata berkelas dunia.

Saya akan bercerita tentang salah satu program unggulan yang paling bergaung di NTB, yaitu “Desa Berdaya.”

Program ini ingin membangun kemandirian desa dengan mengokohkan fondasi sosial ekonomi dengan dua pendekatan, yaitu menyelesaikan masalah dan mendorong potensi desa. Didukung penuh oleh Gubernur NTB, hal ini mematahkan asumsi tentang rendahnya keterlibatan pemerintah provinsi dalam menyelesaikan masalah di desa.

Beberapa bulan yang lalu, pemerintah NTB mengadakan sebuah forum silaturahmi mitra pembangunan untuk Desa Berdaya. Dalam ceramahnya, Gubernur NTB mendiskusikan alasan kenapa NTB masih termasuk ke dalam 12 daerah termiskin di Indonesia, padahal ada begitu banyak program mitra pembangunan yang masuk ke NTB sejak lama. Ia berpendapat ini akibat tidak adanya orkestrasi yang membuat program pemerintah dan nonpemerintah yang saling mendukung untuk menghasilkan dampak yang menyeluruh dan tidak parsial.

Di kegiatan inilah kemudian terhimpun data 52 mitra pembangunan yang juga bergerak di tingkat desa. Lalu, bagaimana tindak lanjutnya? Didik S. Mulyono, seorang konsultan perencanaan dari Yogyakarta, memberikan masukan yang sangat baik untuk kami. Perlu dibentuk model “logic” atau kerangka kerja logis sebagai “peta jalan” yang menjelaskan hubungan antara proses, output, hingga dampak pembangunan yang dapat menjadi panduan bagi berbagai pihak untuk berkontribusi pada kesuksesan Desa Berdaya.

Strukturnya kurang lebih seperti ini:

Dengan kerangka ini, seluruh pihak yang terlibat—baik pemerintah, mitra pembangunan, maupun masyarakat—memiliki pemahaman yang sama tentang arah pembangunan dan posisi kontribusinya masing-masing.

Menemukan kesenjangan, menetapkan target realistis

Salah satu kekuatan model ini adalah kemampuannya mengidentifikasi kesenjangan (gap). Misalnya, pada level sumber daya manusia (SDM), sering kali intervensi hanya berhenti pada peningkatan pengetahuan (knowledge), belum sampai pada perubahan sikap (attitude) dan praktik (practice).

Sayangnya, banyak program mitra pembangunan saat ini baru menyentuh aspek teknis. Tanpa kerangka logis, ketimpangan ini sering tidak disadari. Selain itu, juga penting untuk memahami bahwa pada intervensi yang berada di level proses, perubahan paling realistis hanya sampai pada output—bukan langsung pada impact. Kesadaran inilah yang membantu semua pihak menetapkan ekspektasi yang masuk akal dan menghindari klaim berlebihan.

Jadi begitulah dinamika menarik yang ada di Bappeda NTB. Saya rasa cukup reformis di tengah semakin terbelitnya APBD karena besarnya pemotongan transfer pusat ke daerah. Pemerintah provinsi pun harus terus aktif dan kreatif menemukan ragam sumber daya agar tetap mampu mencapai target pembangunan yang tentunya bertujuan untuk menjawab berbagai masalah kontekstual daerah dan masyarakatnya.

Last month, the Communications and Digital Affairs Ministry officially classified platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, and Roblox as ‘high-risk’ for children, effectively banning under-16 users from accessing them.

The regulation is outlined in the recently enacted Government Regulation No. 17/2025 on the Governance of Electronic Systems for Child Protection, also known as ‘PP Tunas’. The ministry framed this regulation as a landmark policy, positioning Indonesia as the first non-Western country to adopt such a comprehensive approach to online child protection.

What does PP Tunas govern?

In a nutshell, PP Tunas introduces a set of obligations for electronic system providers (ESPs) to safeguard children in the digital environment. These include features requiring age verification and parental controls, stronger content moderation to remove harmful material, user reporting tools, and restrictions on the commercial use of children’s personal data.

The government argues that these measures are necessary given the scale of children’s exposure to digital technologies. Almost half of Indonesian Internet users are under 18, with estimates suggesting that many children spend up to seven hours online each day.

UNICEF data indicates that a significant proportion of Indonesian children have encountered harmful online content, including sexual material. Further, a growing body of research suggests that excessive social media use may be associated with increased risks of addiction, anxiety, stress, and other mental health challenges.

These concerns have strengthened the urgency for regulatory intervention to ensure safer online environments for children.

Global effort to protect children online

Efforts to create a child-friendly digital environment have gained increasing global attention. International frameworks from UNESCO and the OECD consistently emphasize that protecting children online requires more than regulatory intervention; it demands a holistic approach that combines governance, education, and platform accountability.

Policy developments in Australia highlight both the importance and the limits of regulation in creating a child-friendly digital environment. As one of the early movers in this space, the Australian government has introduced measures to protect children from harmful online content. However, these efforts have also attracted criticism for risking an overly restrictive approach that may undermine children’s agency and do little to address the broader ecosystem in which digital harms occur. This suggests that regulation, while necessary, cannot function as a standalone solution.

Finland offers an example of a more holistic approach, integrating digital literacy into its national curriculum from an early age. This equips children not only with technical skills but also with critical thinking abilities and awareness of online safety. Rather than relying primarily on control, the Finnish model emphasizes empowerment, preparing children to navigate digital spaces responsibly and independently. Such experiences demonstrate that building a safe digital environment requires long-term investment in education and capacity-building, not only technological safeguards.

These global experiences offer important lessons for Indonesia. The recently introduced PP Tunas represents a significant regulatory step, but it largely operates at the downstream level by focusing on controlling risks on digital platforms. Platforms are required to strengthen content moderation, governments are obliged to enhance blocking mechanisms, and parents are urged to increase supervision. While these measures are important, they do not address the full scope of the problem.

Beyond regulatory interventions

Building a comprehensive child-friendly digital environment requires upstream interventions, too. This means policy must be accompanied by:

First, systematic digital literacy initiatives across multiple levels, including children, parents, and schools. Children should be supported to grow into empowered digital citizens capable of navigating online spaces safely and critically.

This also requires equipping parents and educators with the knowledge and tools to guide children’s digital engagement, including issues related to well-being, online safety, and responsible technology use. Without sufficient understanding, protective measures are unlikely to be effective in everyday contexts.

Second, children are not merely objects that need protection, but subjects with rights in the digital environment. Digital spaces must be safe, yes. But it should also enable children to learn, express themselves, and participate. Policies that emphasize restriction too heavily risk overlooking other important dimensions of children’s digital experiences. For example, excessive limitations on access may reduce opportunities for children to develop digital literacy, foster creativity, or build positive social networks.

More importantly, the regulation raises questions about what happens when children turn 16 and suddenly gain access to previously restricted platforms. Without adequate preparation, children may enter digital spaces without the skills and resilience necessary to navigate online risks. This transition period highlights the importance of not only protecting children but also preparing them to participate meaningfully in digital society.

Third, there is also a need for stronger platform accountability. Not all Indonesian children have equal access, capacity, or digital experiences. Given this diversity, regulation needs to move beyond content moderation obligations toward greater transparency of algorithms and safety-by-design approaches. For instance, platforms should be encouraged or required to reduce exposure to harmful content, limit features that may foster addictive use, and provide child-friendly reporting mechanisms.

Ultimately, child-friendly digital environments cannot be achieved through a single policy instrument alone. Regulations such as PP Tunas provide an important foundation, but they are not a standalone solution. Protecting children online should not only focus on reducing risks. It should also enable meaningful and safe opportunities for children to learn, participate, and develop as empowered digital citizens. Policies, therefore, need to move beyond a purely protectionist approach toward one that strengthens children’s autonomy, resilience, and digital capabilities.

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Last week, a social media post went viral after exposing a group chat of 16 law students from the University of Indonesia (UI) filled with lewd, objectifying comments about female students and teaching staff.

Shortly after, the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) was under fire after another viral post showed students singing ‘Erika’, a song with vulgar, degrading lyrics that has apparently been a staple on campus since the 1980s.

Has sexual harassment become normalized on campus? Or has it always been like this—and social media simply makes it easier for such cases to take a prime spot in public consciousness?

How can universities, where ethics and moral principles are taught as a mandatory course in the first year, become a fertile ground for rampant, largely unpunished sexual violence cases?

The Indonesian Education Monitoring Network (JPPI) recorded over 200 cases of violence in educational environments in January–March 2026 alone. Eleven percent of those cases occurred at the university level, and nearly half are sexual violence cases. JPPI national coordinator, Ubait Matraji, says that this shows what happened at UI is not an isolated incident but instead, a systemic phenomenon. In 2025, the National Commission on Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan) recorded 1,091 cases of online gender-based violence (KBGO)—90 percent of which are sexual in nature.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a new occurrence. In 2019, The Jakarta Post, Tirto.id, and VICE Indonesia published a collaborative exposé dubbed ‘#NamaBaikKampus’ (‘#CampusReputation’), a jab at how many university administrators across the country actively conceal sexual violence cases to protect their so-called good reputation.

The investigation collected the data of over 100 cases of sexual violence that happened in 79 universities across 29 cities. Out of all victims that came forward, half confessed they did not file a report with the authorities. This indicates a system in which universities and the state are complicit in perpetuating rape culture by failing to set a norm that does not tolerate sexual violence.

When perpetrators of sexual violence get a slap on the wrist—or worse, get away with total impunity—the system is basically sending a message that it is okay to do it and there will be no consequences. Meanwhile, victims are afraid to report because their experience often gets denied or downplayed.

There is a real crisis: victims of sexual violence do not have a safe space where it is okay for them to speak out and file a report, whereas law enforcement operates with leniency towards perpetrators while being very strict towards victims. Ultimately, this creates a fear of ‘revictimization’.

What makes it disheartening is that sexual violence has continued to go largely unpunished even after the enactment of Law No. 12/2022 on the Crimes of Sexual Violence (UU TPKS). On paper, it provides a comprehensive legal framework that outlines a broad spectrum of sexual violence and stipulates robust provisions aimed at protecting the victims throughout and beyond the legal process. In practice, we have yet to see the law being implemented to the fullest extent possible.

According to the Indonesian Women for Justice Legal Aid Institute (LBH APIK), the police often refuse to use the full provisions of UU TPKS in handling sexual violence cases. Their monitoring shows that while UU TPKS is often invoked in the initial stage of investigations, the police would then rely on the Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP), which treats sexual violence cases like any other criminal acts—ignoring UU TPKS stipulation for a distinct, victim-oriented evidentiary approach. This leads to sexual violence cases often being dismissed on the grounds that they fail to meet the procedural standards set by KUHAP.

But legal procedural issues are far from the only hurdle. It is the stubborn social ‘norms’ that have long normalized actions like catcalling and making objectifying comments on women’s bodies as ‘locker room talk’ or that ‘boys will be boys’. In a world where women’s perspectives are often missing in law enforcement practice and other positions of authority, it’s no wonder that victims of sexual violence are often discouraged from speaking out or filing a report in the first place.

Ironically, higher education institutions are already equipped with a progressive, victim-centered, gender-sensitive legal framework to prevent and handle sexual violence cases on campus. The year before UU TPKS was passed, the Education and Culture Ministry issued Ministerial Regulation No. 30/2021 (‘Permendikbud 30’) on the prevention and handling of sexual violence, detailing a reporting mechanism and mandating the establishment of Anti-Sexual Violence Task Forces on campus.

Former education and culture minister Nadiem Makarim, at that time, said the regulation was necessary because the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code had limitations in handling sexual violence cases. For example, the Codes only recognize rape and molestation as sexual violence. Meanwhile, he said, online gender-based violence was going rampant on campus.

Both UU TPKS and Permendikbud 30 recognize a broader definition of sexual violence—including ones typically normalized like verbal and online harassment. However, the fact that more and more cases continue happening reveals a pattern that both campus administrators and the state have failed to enforce the social norm required to create a safe environment for those most vulnerable to sexual violence.

The problem is that we know what must happen to put an end to this vicious cycle of impunity. It is one thing to have a mechanism, but a lot of work remains to foster a reliable, safe, and dignified enforcement model where victims can have trust in the system.

Law enforcement authorities can start by properly training their apparatus to understand how to handle sexual violence cases with an empathetic, gender-sensitive, and trauma-informed approach. They must also strictly punish and rehabilitate perpetrators. If not, the law will never effectively deter future offenders.

The viral UI law school case only sheds light on a system that has not batted an eye when sexual violence occurs. Leaders at the top, including the President, must take a firm stance against all sexual violence cases. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time until the next scandal happens again. We deserve better.

This article is also available in Indonesian here.

It was another day where I watched yet another group of men dragging suitcases and hauling large backpacks into our office. It was not an unusual sight. For the past year, working as a verification officer at the Indonesian Migrant Worker Protection Service Post (P4MI) in Batam, I had grown used to receiving them. Their faces looked rushed and panicked.

“Immigration told us to report here,” said one of the migrant merchant seafarers.

“What is your job?” I asked.

“A sailor, ma’am,” he replied.

Issues surrounding seafarers, whom we typically refer to as Migrant Merchant Ship Crew and Migrant Fishing Vessel Crew officially, and seafarers colloquially, began surfacing in early 2025. Rejections of seafarers at several international ports bordering Singapore and Malaysia, including Batam Centre International Port, Harbour Bay Port, and Sekupang International Port, came as a surprise. It turned out that these seafarers were required to have an e-PMI, an electronic identity card proving their status as Indonesian migrant workers formally registered in the system of the Migrant Workers Protection Ministry (KP2MI).

Yet there had been no directive from the central government and no widespread outreach about the obligation for seafarers to hold an e-PMI. There was also resistance from some seafarers: in their view, their identity was that of a sailor, not a migrant worker.

The placement framework for seafarers had never been implemented since Law No. 18/2017 on the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers was enacted. Article 4 of the law stipulates that merchant ship crew and fishing vessel crew are classified as Indonesian Migrant Workers. The technical provisions are further regulated under Government Regulation No. 22/2022 on the Placement and Protection of Migrant Merchant Ship Crew and Migrant Fishing Vessel Crew.

But the regulation appeared to be unknown to seafarers. Many asked why it had been enforced so suddenly, without any government outreach.

At the time, we could only offer the normative answer that the regulation had been in place since 2022. We often heard the reply: “Ma’am, I have been a sailor for years. This is the first time I have ever been turned away like this. And all my documents are complete.”

I found it deeply ironic. Rather than protecting migrant workers, the existing rules had ended up restricting their mobility at the border.

It is upsetting that after being refused to pass at immigration, the seafarers faced more rejections at our office. From early to mid-2025, over 300 seafarers were turned away, and of those, only 40 were able to have their e-PMI processed.

The rejections occurred because most crew members had not completed the documents required by the registration system. On average, seafarers only had a passport, a seaman’s book, and a Letter of Guarantee in lieu of a visa. Some also did not have employment contracts, as their experience had been that contracts would be signed upon arrival or after completing a medical check-up in the destination country.

For months, the problem dragged on without resolution. We had reported the issues to our supervisors, but being in daily conflict with seafarers took a moral and mental toll. On one hand, we were obliged to provide services; on the other, as part of the system, we could not avoid turning people away. Being caught in the middle was exhausting.

After careful consideration, we took the initiative to draft a letter to the relevant directorate within our ministry, KP2MI, so that the central office could provide clarity and help minimize rejections. Once the draft was ready, we asked our supervisors to help escalate it to the centre.

BP3MI Kepulauan Riau, the ministry’s regional unit overseeing our office, assisted in sending the letter to the directorate responsible for seafarers. The letter outlined the rejections seafarers faced, the limited documents it typically held, and a regulatory inconsistency: the law required a visa as a mandatory document, while seafarers held a Guarantee Letter instead.

Following guidance from the central government, a total of 1,345 e-PMIs were issued throughout 2025 under the individual seafarer scheme. This shed new light on migrant worker data we had not previously had, revealing that seafarers in Singapore and Malaysia dominated placement numbers. But because of regulatory barriers, their presence had gone unrecorded all along. It marked a bureaucratic breakthrough.

Yet even with implementation underway, confusion across sectors had not fully cleared.

On one occasion, crew members working for a company operating an Indonesian-flagged vessel were turned away at immigration for not having an e-PMI. When they came to our office, they were turned away again, this time because we had no authority over crew working for local companies holding a Ship Crew Agency Business Licence (SIUKAK), as that fell under the Transportation Ministry’s Directorate General of Sea Transportation.

Confusion at the top, a dualism unresolved

Despite regulatory advancements, dualism and contentions persist between KP2MI and the Transportation Ministry. Alongside the e-PMI issued by KP2MI, there is a separate card, the Seafarer Identity Card (SID), issued by the ministry. In November 2024, the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore began issuing e-SIDs for seafarers, and to this day, seafarers based in Singapore remain under the transport attaché’s jurisdiction.

Looking more closely, the two existing frameworks stem from different references. The e-PMI derives from Law No. 18/2017, which draws on the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Meanwhile, the SID is a manifestation of ILO Convention No. 185 on the Seafarers’ Identity Documents Convention.

While both are legally valid, they create confusion because, as far as seafarers are concerned, both are government products. So why are they not merged into one? That question remains unanswered, as both institutions continue to carry out their respective sectoral mandates without harmonisation, leaving problems that should be resolved at the central level to be dealt with at the service counter instead.

This cross-sectoral policy incoherence is worsened by on-the-ground rejections that create uncertainty, costing ships time, money, and effort—and causing seafarers to lose job opportunities. Of all those affected, the greatest burden falls on the very people the system is supposed to protect: Indonesian Migrant Workers, including seafarers. The protective function of the e-PMI is not fully understood, because the fear of being held at immigration and losing a job looms far larger.

Despite doing our best to serve, our work was not without fault in the eyes of others.

One day, a senior official from the central office paid a visit. He summoned my colleague and me, who had been processing cases at the time. I was interrogated as though I had committed a criminal act, because the employment contracts of some of the seafarers were dated the following day rather than that day. I argued that, as far as I understood, seafarers typically sign contracts upon arrival in the destination country or on board, given the differences between sea-based and land-based placement procedures.

The senior official insisted I was wrong, dismissing my eight years of experience at this post. “After all this time working here, you still don’t understand anything,” he said.

The same official also added a new layer of complexity by requiring sailors to attach a letter of permission from their families. Such is bureaucratic culture in Indonesia: senior officials cannot be contradicted. Meanwhile, the situation at the border, where rejections kept happening, continued to pile up.

The dilemma led me to contact the relevant directorate handling seafarers directly, having come to realise that the senior official did not come from the unit responsible for this area. When I raised the issue, they responded that it was a good thing that seafarers were willing to be registered at all, and that making it harder for them would only mean more going unrecorded, which would create even bigger problems down the line.

Working in this institution feels like standing at a crossroads, constantly forced to choose between conscience and bureaucracy. The seafarers do not care about sectoral mandates; they simply want an easier path to earning a living, and that hope lands on the service counter.

For me, a small victory is the brightened face of a sailor walking out with his backpack and an e-PMI in hand.

Read winning articles from our first Writing Competition on our site: thereformist.id. The Bahasa Indonesia series can be found in the “Insiders” section. New article every week!

Artikel ini tersedia juga dalam Bahasa Inggris di sini.

Hari itu saya kembali menyaksikan rombongan bapak-bapak menyeret koper dan menggendong ransel besar datang ke kantor kami. Ini bukan pemandangan asing. Setahun ke belakang, saya sebagai petugas verifikator di Pos Pelayanan Pelindungan Pekerja Migran Indonesia (P4MI) di Batam terbiasa menerima mereka. Raut wajah mereka terlihat terburu-buru dan panik.

“Bu, kami disuruh imigrasi lapor ke sini,” ujar salah satu awak kapal niaga migran.

“Bapak kerja sebagai apa?” tanya saya.

“Pelaut, Bu,” ujarnya.

Permasalahan seputar pelaut, yang biasa kami sebut Awak Kapal Niaga Migran dan Awak Kapal Perikanan (AKNM dan AKP), mulai muncul pada awal 2025. Penolakan terhadap AKNM dan AKP yang terjadi di beberapa pelabuhan internasional yang berbatasan dengan Singapura dan Malaysia, seperti Pelabuhan Internasional Batam Centre, Pelabuhan Harbour Bay, dan Pelabuhan Internasional Sekupang Batam, tentu saja mengagetkan.

Pasalnya, ternyata para pelaut ini perlu memiliki e-PMI, kartu identitas elektronik yang membuktikan status mereka sebagai pekerja migran Indonesia yang resmi terdaftar di sistem Kementerian Pelindungan Pekerja Migran Indonesia (KP2MI).

Padahal, belum ada arahan dari pemerintah pusat dan sosialisasi secara masif tentang kewajiban pelaut untuk memiliki e-PMI. Ditambah lagi, ada resistensi dari sebagian pelaut: bagi mereka, identitas mereka adalah pelaut, bukan pekerja migran.

Penempatan AKNM dan AKP belum pernah diimplementasikan sejak Undang-Undang (UU) No. 18/2017 tentang Pelindungan Pekerja Migran Indonesia disahkan. Padahal, Pasal 4 sudah menjelaskan bahwa pelaut awak kapal dan pelaut perikanan telah termasuk sebagai Pekerja Migran Indonesia. Teknisnya kemudian diatur dalam Peraturan Pemerintah No. 22/2022 tentang Penempatan dan Pelindungan Awak Kapal Niaga dan Awak Kapal Perikanan Migran.

Namun, aturan ini nampaknya tidak diketahui awak kapal. Banyak dari mereka yang bertanya mengapa aturan ini sangat tiba-tiba tanpa ada sosialisasi dari pemerintah?

Saat itu, kami hanya memberikan jawaban normatif bahwa aturan ini sudah ada sejak tahun 2022. Tidak jarang kami mendengar balasan, “Bu, saya jadi pelaut sudah bertahun-tahun. Baru kali ini ditolak begini. Padahal dokumen sudah lengkap.”

Saya pikir ini begitu ironis. Alih-alih untuk memberikan perlindungan kepada pekerja migran, aturan yang ada malah memberikan batasan pada mobilitas di perbatasan karena tidak disosialisasi dengan baik.

Lebih sedihnya lagi, penundaan keberangkatan di imigrasi kembali berujung pahit dengan penolakan di kantor kami. Dari awal hingga pertengahan 2025, lebih dari 350 orang pelaut ditunda keberangkatannya oleh imigrasi dan diarahkan untuk melapor ke kantor kami. Namun, dari jumlah tersebut, hanya 40 orang yang memenuhi persyaratan dokumen dan dapat kami proses e-PMInya.

Penolakan terjadi karena sebagian besar pelaut belum melengkapi dokumen yang disyaratkan dalam SISKOP2MI, sistem layanan terpadu kami. Mereka rata-rata hanya memiliki paspor, buku pelaut, dan Letter of Guarantee (LG) sebagai pengganti visa. Sebagian lainnya tidak memiliki kontrak kerja karena menurut pengalaman mereka, kontrak akan ditandatangani setibanya atau selesai melaksanakan medical check-up di negara penempatan.

Berbulan-bulan permasalahan ini tak kunjung selesai tanpa kepastian. Isu yang muncul pun telah kami sampaikan ke pimpinan. Namun, berkonflik setiap hari dengan para pelaut tentu saja menjadi beban moral dan mental bagi kami yang menjadi garda terdepan.

Di satu sisi, pelayanan harus diberikan. Namun, di sisi lain, sebagai bagian dari sistem, penolakan tidak bisa dihindari. Berada di tengah-tengahnya tentu saja melelahkan. Setelah pertimbangan matang, kami berinisiatif untuk membuat surat ke direktorat terkait di kementerian kami. Kami berpikir surat ini bisa jadi jawaban agar permasalahan ini mendapat kejelasan dari pusat agar pelayanan optimal dan penolakan bisa ditekan.

Setelah draf surat selesai, kami meminta tolong pimpinan untuk membantu mengirimkan surat tersebut ke pusat.

BP3MI Kepulauan Riau, unit balai layanan yang membawahi kantor kami, pun membantu mengirimkan surat ke Direktorat Penempatan Awak Kapal Niaga Migran dan Awak Kapal Perikanan Migran. Surat tersebut berisi penolakan yang terjadi kepada AKNM, minimnya dokumen yang dimiliki oleh mereka, serta adanya aturan yang bias karena di dalam undang-undang, salah satu dokumen yang harus dimiliki adalah visa, sementara kebanyakan mereka hanya punya Letter of Guarantee (LG).

Setelah adanya arahan dari pusat, sepanjang 2025 telah diterbitkan 1.345 e-PMI dengan skema AKNM perseorangan. Hal ini jadi tamparan: selama ini pendataan pekerja migran Indonesia hanya berorientasi pada pekerja di darat. Kami tidak tahu bahwa pekerja migran sektor maritim Indonesia di Singapura dan Malaysia mendominasi angka penempatan yang tercatat di unit kerja kami; sebelumnya keberadaan mereka tidak tercatat.

Ini adalah sebuah terobosan. Akhirnya, pada tahun 2025, aturan baru tentang awak kapal sebagai pekerja migran yang dimuat dalam UU No. 18/2017 dan PP No. 22/2022 pun diimplementasikan di lapangan.

Meskipun implementasi telah dilakukan, kebingungan lintas sektor masih terjadi.

Pada suatu ketika, awak kapal yang bekerja di perusahaan kapal berbendera Indonesia ditolak di imigrasi karena tidak memiliki e-PMI. Ketika mereka datang ke kantor kami, kami terpaksa menolak untuk menerbitkan e-PMI karena kami tidak memiliki otoritas terhadap awak kapal yang bekerja untuk perusahaan lokal yang memiliki Surat Izin Usaha Keagenan Awak Kapal (SIUKAK). Perusahaan jenis ini adalah ranah Kementerian Perhubungan, khususnya Direktorat Jenderal Perhubungan Laut (HUBLA).

Tumpang tindih aturan dan kebingungan di lapangan

Kebingungan masih berlanjut akibat tumpang tindih regulasi antara KP2MI dan Kementerian Perhubungan. Selain e-PMI yang dikeluarkan KP2MI, ada kartu identitas lain yang dimiliki oleh awak kapal, yakni Seafarer Identity Card (SID) yang dikeluarkan oleh Kementerian Perhubungan. November 2024 lalu, Kedutaan Besar Republik Indonesia di Singapura mengeluarkan e-SID, SID versi elektronik, bagi para pelaut. Hingga saat ini pun pelaut yang berada di Singapura masih di bawah atase perhubungan.

Mengapa ini bisa terjadi?

Jika ditelisik lebih jauh, kedua jenis identitas bersumber dari acuan hukum yang berbeda. e-PMI lahir dari UU No. 18/2017 yang merujuk pada Konvensi Internasional mengenai Pelindungan Hak-Hak Seluruh Pekerja Migran dan Anggota Keluarganya.

Sementara, SID merupakan manifestasi Konvensi ILO No. 185 tentang Konvensi Perubahan Dokumen Identitas Pelaut. Meskipun keduanya sah secara hukum, hal ini menimbulkan kebingungan karena yang mereka pahami, keduanya merupakan produk pemerintah.

Lantas mengapa tidak dijadikan satu? Pertanyaan ini masih belum terjawab karena kedua instansi masih menjalankan mandat sektoralnya masing-masing tanpa harmonisasi, sehingga permasalahan yang seharusnya diselesaikan di tingkat pusat terpaksa diselesaikan di meja pelayanan.

Ketidakharmonisan kebijakan lintas sektor diperburuk oleh penolakan di lapangan yang berimbas pada ketidakpastian pelayanan yang bisa menimbulkan kerugian waktu, materi, dan tenaga pelaut, serta kehilangan kesempatan untuk mendapatkan pekerjaan.

Dari semua permasalahan ini, yang menanggung kerugian terbesar adalah objek yang seharusnya dilindungi, yaitu pekerja migran, termasuk awak kapal niaga migran. e-PMI yang fungsinya sebagai bentuk pelindungan negara tidak sepenuhnya disadari karena gagal melewati pos imigrasi untuk bekerja menjadi momok yang lebih menakutkan.

Meskipun telah melakukan pelayanan dengan sebaik-baiknya, tugas kami bukan tanpa cela. Suatu hari kami kedatangan salah seorang pejabat senior dari pusat. Beliau memanggil saya dan rekan saya yang pada saat itu melakukan pelayanan terhadap awak kapal. Saya disidang seolah-olah melakukan tindakan pidana sebab kontrak kerja para pelaut tertulis esok hari, bukan tanggal hari ini. Saya pun berargumen bahwa dari yang saya tahu, para pelaut biasanya akan menandatangani kontrak ketika sampai di negara penempatan atau di atas kapal karena ada perbedaan dalam tata cara penempatan sea-based dan land-based.

Pejabat senior itu tetap bersikeras bahwa itu salah. Berdalih bahwa pengalaman saya selama 8 tahun bekerja di sini tidak ada artinya. “Sudah selama itu di sini, masa tidak mengerti apa-apa?” ujarnya.

Pejabat senior ini juga menambah dinamika dengan kewajiban pelaut melampirkan surat izin dari keluarga. Namanya juga budaya birokrasi di Indonesia: pejabat senior tidak bisa dibantah. Sementara kondisi di perbatasan, di mana penolakan juga terjadi, tentu saja menimbulkan gejolak.

Dilema ini membuat saya menghubungi Direktorat terkait yang menangani AKNM dan AKP karena belakangan kami sadar bahwa pejabat senior tersebut tidak berasal dari unit yang membidangi. Setelah permasalahan saya utarakan, jawaban mereka adalah awak kapal sudah mau terdata saja, sudah bagus daripada dipersulit dan tidak terdata, malah sulit kalau ada permasalahan.

Bekerja di instansi ini rasanya seperti bekerja di persimpangan dan dihadapkan pada pilihan nurani atau birokrasi yang terjadi karena kondisi. Mereka tidak peduli dengan mandat sektoral; mereka cuma ingin langkah mereka untuk mencari nafkah dipermudah, dan harapan itu berada di meja pelayanan.

Sebuah kemenangan kecil bagi saya adalah wajah cerah para pelaut yang kembali menenteng ransel dengan e-PMI di genggaman.

Last year, President Prabowo Subianto returned home from his visit to the Netherlands with a repatriation agreement. The Dutch government was to return about 30,000 artifacts that had been taken by the Dutch during their occupation of Indonesia.

This was great news—right?

Well, not according to the netizens. When the news broke, instead of high praise, the agreement was met with hefty skepticism on social media, with statements like “the artifacts will be safer in the Netherlands” and “can we even take care of them…?”

Some others went as far as expressing concerns that the artifacts will end up lost, decayed, destroyed, or stolen—be it in a museum fire, collection theft, or pure neglect—if they are returned to Indonesia.

These reservations are not unfounded. In 2020, a government report revealed that only 8 percent of Indonesia’s 439 museums are well-managed or “type A,” according to the government’s own museum management standards. Several museums—including the National Museum, Maritime Museum, and Clay Museum—have caught fire in the past decade, destroying invaluable collections. Museum lootings are also relatively common, as some museums have no security guards, some lack CCTVs, and many cases remain unsolved. The National Museum in Jakarta has been robbed five times throughout its history, most recently in 2013.

But the state of our museums and the lack of trust Indonesians have in their government to take good care of our treasured artifacts may have unearthed more pressing issues to discuss: Why haven’t we made culture and heritage preservation a priority? What reforms have been made since our independence to make sure we are getting better at caring for the items that carry our collective memories?

In this edition of The Reformist, we look into the evolution of Indonesia’s cultural and heritage sector from the colonial period to the present: through the regulations that were passed, the institutions that were built, the diplomatic struggles to reclaim what was taken, and the reforms that have only recently begun to test whether the country can do better.

Decades of colonial-style preservation

Before Indonesia gained its independence in 1945, the field of cultural heritage preservation existed under the colonial Dutch East Indies administration. The Dutch understood that the land they were occupying had centuries’ worth of history to preserve, though their approach was fundamentally orientalist.

The Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences, founded in 1778, was created by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) officials to study the cultural and scientific aspects of the archipelago. They conducted ethnographic and archaeological research, accumulating collections of objects of significant cultural and prehistoric importance to the archipelago. The society sat where the National Museum exists today in Central Jakarta.

Furthermore, the Dutch focused on restoring monuments to their former condition, preventing the removal of artifacts. It was under the Dutch that the Prambanan and Borobudur temples began to be restored in the 1910s. Their preservation principles were codified in 1931 through Monumenten Ordonnantie (MO) regulation, with cultural objects divided into three categories: (1) man-made objects of great importance for prehistory, history, or art; (2) palaeoanthropology objects; and (3) historical sites.

It was only six decades later that the colonial regulation was changed through the passage of Law No. 5/1992 on Cultural Heritage Objects. It officially designates every cultural heritage object as state property, regardless of its actual whereabouts and ownership, while permitting private citizens and foundations to possess them as long as their “social functions” are intact. Cultural heritage items and sites were defined similarly along the lines of “man-made” objects with significant historical importance and aged at least 50 years old.

Addressing the elephant in the room: Culture’s history of neglect

After the New Order fell in 1998 under the Reformasi movement, the spirit of decentralization carried hope that regional governments could participate in managing their own cultural heritage. This would only come in 2010—twelve years into Reformasi—through the passage of Law No. 11/2010.

It would take another 12 years and three different ministers to complete and promulgate the implementing regulation for that law, Government Regulation No. 1/2022. According to a former official involved in the process, this was due to ministries and government bodies repeatedly deprioritizing provisions requiring their sign-offs. A telling reflection of how cultural heritage preservation has long been neglected by the government.

Over the past decade, and likely for long before that, cultural affairs have consistently received less than 0.1 percent of Indonesia’s national budget. Even after the Directorate General for Culture was elevated into a standalone ministry in 2024, its fiscal standing has stagnated.

That said, there is a bright spot. When it comes to Indonesia’s cultural heritage, repatriation from abroad, particularly the Netherlands, is a selling point.

Reclaiming our collective memory from the colonial gaze

Repatriation of Indonesian heritage items was among the demands of the new Republic in the 1949 Round Table Conference. While the transfer of sovereignty was formalized, the tense relations between the infant country and its former colonizer prevented any act of repatriation at the time. In fact, one of the articles in the conference agreement stipulated that the Dutch must return every Indonesian cultural heritage item it possesses.

It was under President Suharto that Indonesia’s first significant repatriation efforts with the Netherlands took shape. During his state visit to The Hague in 1970, Suharto was received by then-Queen Juliana, and the Nagarakretagama—a 14th-century Majapahit manuscript of enormous historical significance—was eventually returned to Indonesian hands. In 1978, the Dutch returned the famous 13th-century Prajnaparamita statue from the Singhasari Kingdom.

These returns were framed entirely within a Dutch paradigm of benevolence. The Netherlands decided what would be returned and how the narrative would be framed. According to archival research by heritage scholar Jos van Beurden, when talks of returning the Nagarakretagama manuscript surfaced, then-Dutch Prime Minister Piet De Jong supported its return as it would allow the Dutch to retrieve valuable VOC archives located in Indonesia’s National Archives building.

There was no overarching policy guiding what Indonesia should claim or what would happen to objects once they returned home.

The tides only began to shift 40 years later in the late 2010s. Former Western colonizers started to reckon more seriously with their colonial past. In 2017, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly vowed to return African heritage items looted by the French colonial forces. This reckoning added pressure on the Netherlands to do right by its own colonial history. For the first time, the Dutch cultural sector began engaging with its Indonesian counterparts in a fundamentally different register.

It was in this context that the Nusantara Museum in Delft, facing bankruptcy, offered its entire collection of 14,000 artifacts to Indonesia without charge. Then-Director General for Culture Kacung Marijan accepted the offer swiftly. A year later, his successor Hilmar Farid annulled the agreement, drawing confusion from both Indonesian and Dutch observers.

He called for the deal to begin from scratch, mandating that provenance research be conducted first to trace the historical and ownership origins of each object in the collection. Of the 14,000 items from the initial agreement, Indonesia agreed to receive 1,500 of them under the new agreement.

“It’s not simply about the return of objects; it’s about knowledge production. It’s about rewriting history; it’s about dealing with past injustices. That’s where I would locate the discussion of returning objects,” said Hilmar on the significance of provenance research.

Hilmar’s insistence on joint provenance research, rather than passive acceptance of whatever the Dutch offered, directly led to the creation of the Pilot Provenance Research on Objects of the Colonial Era (PPROCE), a joint project by Dutch cultural institutions, including the Rijksmuseum. It was the first-ever Dutch state-sponsored provenance research program for colonial artifacts, funded and commissioned by the Dutch Education, Culture, and Science Ministry. Over two and a half years, the project produced fifty provenance reports on 65 objects from Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

What followed from the methodological reset was a cascade of returns rooted in provenance. In July 2023, the Netherlands returned 472 cultural artifacts to Indonesia in a ceremony at the Museum Volkenkunde in Leiden. Among them were four 13th-century Singhasari statues depicting Hindu deities held in Dutch collections since the 19th century, as well as objects looted during colonial military campaigns in Java and Bali.

A second return followed in September 2024, when 288 more objects were handed over at the Wereldmuseum in Amsterdam, including 284 items from the Puputan Badung collection—weapons, coins, jewellery, and textiles taken after the Dutch conquest of southern Bali in 1906. In total, over 800 objects were returned under the 2022 repatriation deal by the end of 2024, with the Indonesian government committing to dedicated conservation programs, scholarly research, and public exhibitions to give the returned objects meaning beyond their display cases.

Despite the modality shift in repatriation efforts, the lingering concern about whether these artifacts could actually be cared for at home persisted. The Indonesian government had gained diplomatic leverage in negotiations with the Netherlands, but the domestic infrastructure to safeguard what came remained a work in progress.

Getting our museums in check

It is simply impossible for the state to maintain every museum and heritage site, given the sector’s political and financial neglect. Museums and heritage sites are often poorly managed, forgotten, or left to rot.

In 2020, the former education and culture minister Nadiem Makarim declared that only 39 museums, or 8 percent of Indonesia’s total museums nationwide, met the government’s own highest standard of management and service. Of the 288 government-managed museums at the time, the majority were categorized as Type C, meaning they had buildings and collections but minimal funding, no digital infrastructure, and inadequate conservation facilities.

Nadiem noted that a flawed governance system and the lack of competent human capital within the bureaucracy explained the troubling situation. Before his regime, government-run museums and heritage buildings were directed by third-echelon civil servants from the ministry, under a rigid bureaucratic system. Human capital for museum management was also obsolete, lacking adequate experts and professionals.

The term “museumkan,” which literally translates to “to museum” (verb), was widely used to describe ageing or disgraced civil servants who were transferred into museum management because it was seen as an undesirable sector.

“Most museum staff are themselves ‘museumified’, those who are no longer useful elsewhere, who are about to retire or are underperforming, get stationed in a museum,” said Irmawati Marwoto, archeology professor at Universitas Indonesia.

These historic challenges became the reason why the former Education and Culture Ministry created the Indonesian Heritage Agency (IHA) in 2023. The IHA was made to introduce an innovative public-private partnership model for museum and heritage site governance. It designated 34 museums and heritage sites as autonomous Public Service Agencies (BLUs). The National Museum in Jakarta, Fort Vredeburg in Yogyakarta, Sangiran Early Man Site in Srangen, and many more notable museums and heritage sites were all turned into autonomous institutions under the IHA.

The BLU model can be seen as a push towards enterprising the public sector without the for-profit motive of the private sector. Management of BLUs is rooted in maximizing efficiency and self-sufficiency for public service, allowing these agencies the freedom to reel in new funding models and acquire talent from outside the bureaucracy. This model is most common in the healthcare sector, wherein public hospitals are turned into BLUs to reel in healthcare specialists from the private sector who are absent from the bureaucratic talent pool.

In the cultural heritage context, the BLU model allows for greater independence for historical institutions to govern efficiently without the constraints of bureaucratic inertia. Cultural experts, museum curators, academics, and other professionals from the private sector can now be recruited to participate in conservation and preservation efforts. BLUs can also directly receive grants and donations from the private sector to help fund their operations.

This public-private partnership model is a step towards raising Indonesia’s museum governance to international standards. In the United Kingdom, major national museums incorporate a blended governance model, pooling funds from private endowment and government support.

The British Museum, for example, is also an independent non-departmental public body, a structurally similar model to Indonesian BLUs. The museum is governed by an independent Board of Trustees and funded through a combination of government aid from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and income it generates through commercial activities, private donations, endowments, and exhibition fees.

This dual-funding structure gives the museum financial flexibility to operate autonomously without being wholly dependent on the state, while remaining publicly accountable as an institution that is adjacent to the government.

While it may take years or even decades before museums in Indonesia can reach the institutional standards of the British Museum, the IHA is a significant step towards realizing that dream, with cultural heritage items that actually belong to the land they originated from.

Where to go from here

Under the current Prabowo administration, creating a standalone Culture Ministry is a start. It signals political will and is a good sign that cultural affairs will hopefully be taken more seriously. However controversial, perhaps having a figure like Minister Fadli Zon, who has close ties to the President, may also help in sustaining said political will.

Political appeal, however, should come with grace and humility. The current regime should follow through with what its predecessor has done for the sector without shaking things up too fast out of ego. It is too soon to tell how effective the IHA will be, but it is important to allow the agency and the cultural institutions inside of it time to work autonomously without interference from the ministry.

Perhaps, in time, more museums and heritage sites can follow suit, revitalizing the industry and opening up more jobs for cultural practitioners and experts in a field that has historically been neglected.

Credits:

• Writer/Researcher:

• Editors: , ,

• Visual designer:

We consulted the former Director-General for Culture at the then-Education and Culture Ministry, Hilmar Farid, in the writing of this article.

This article is also available in Indonesian here.

During my studies in Japan, fulfilling various administrative obligations rarely felt like a burden. About a five-minute walk from my apartment stood a Yamazaki konbini (convenience store), open nearly around the clock. There, I would routinely stop in to pay everything from health insurance premiums to rent to various other administrative fees.

The process was disarmingly simple. I would hand a payment slip to the cashier, who would scan it with a warm smile as though it were no different from ringing up a cup of coffee and a snack. Once the transaction was done, the slip would be stamped with a distinctive red Japanese seal, a hanko, faintly reminiscent of the stamps one sees in grand Asian historical epics.

No long queues, no shuffling between counters, and it could all be done at any time, even on weekends. One cashier, one scanner, every obligation settled in minutes. It felt like a small, unremarkable thing, and yet in that moment, I felt the presence of the Japanese government, even without ever having voted or met any of its representatives face to face.

When I returned to Indonesia in 2023, the reality I encountered back home in Southeast Sulawesi felt starkly different. To pay a single type of vehicle tax, I had to queue at the Vehicle Document Registration Center (Samsat) office for thirty minutes, sometimes hours. What should have been a straightforward errand often dragged on, as people were forced to go through multiple service windows just to complete a single payment.

That contrast planted a simple question in my mind: why does public service, which is supposed to make life easier, so often end up making it harder? That question was ultimately what drove me to request a transfer from my previous post at the Economic Bureau of the Southeast Sulawesi Provincial Government to the Regional Revenue Agency (‘Bapenda’) of Southeast Sulawesi, the body directly responsible for managing regional taxes and levies.

As luck would have it, the timing could not have been better. Given my academic background and research focus on regional revenue management during my studies in Japan, the incoming leadership entrusted me as the person in charge of the Acceleration and Expansion of Regional Digitalization (P2DD).

The assignment aligned perfectly with what I had set out to do: make it easier for people to pay their taxes and levies. But the task began from a difficult starting point. At the time, Southeast Sulawesi ranked last among all 34 provinces in Indonesia in the implementation of Regional Government Transaction Electronification (ETPD).

In other words, our province sat at the very bottom of the national rankings, behind even Papua at the far eastern edge of the country. This index essentially reflected what the people of Southeast Sulawesi had long been living with: the vast majority of regional tax and levy payments were still made in cash, through physical service counters. It was far from ideal, and particularly burdensome for those living far from service centers.

Reforms under local constraints

In early 2024, as we began pushing for the digitalization of regional payments, the first obstacle we faced was infrastructure. Southeast Sulawesi’s regional development bank, Bank Sultra, was still in the process of strengthening its digital systems.

As the primary financial partner of the regional government, the bank played a central role in the payment ecosystem, but the technology needed to support integrated digital payment channels, including payment gateways, QR payments, and multi-platform integration, was not yet fully in place. This left us with an uncomfortable choice: waiting for the systems to be ready meant preserving an inefficient status quo, while forcing change without the necessary infrastructure risked creating new problems of its own.

In the end, we chose a collaborative approach. Through discussions facilitated by the Bank Indonesia Representative Office for Southeast Sulawesi, we began exploring the possibility of working with an external payment gateway provider to lay the early groundwork for a digital payment ecosystem.

Bank Indonesia recommended Espay, a payment technology company with experience integrating government payment systems into national digital payment networks. That recommendation became the starting point for a partnership between Bapenda Southeast Sulawesi and Espay, though building that collaboration was by no means straightforward.

Facing bureaucratic skepticism

Implementing the digital payment system required a budget support of around Rp 195 million to cover installation, rental costs, and payment gateway infrastructure integration. In the context of a provincial government budget, this was a relatively modest sum.

But because regional levy revenues had been volatile over the preceding five years, the Regional Financial and Asset Management Agency (BPKAD) questioned the urgency of the investment. In one meeting, they raised the concern that allocating additional funds to an unstable sector was not an easy decision, with no guarantee that the new system would produce a positive impact on regional revenues, and a real possibility that it could actually harm the regional finances.

In response, I posed a question of my own.

“How can we expect anything to change if we keep using the same approach year after year? Digitizing the tax sector is a new approach, and one we are obliged to try.”

I tried to make the case that in efforts like this, there are no guarantees. What we can do is act based on experience and best practices from other regions, such as Jakarta, West Java, East Java, and beyond. If the system works, it can serve as the foundation for something much larger. And if it falls short of expectations, there would have at least been a transfer of knowledge, both within government and among our strategic partners, giving everyone the experience and understanding needed to build similar systems in the future without incurring the same costs again.

That argument proved persuasive, and the funding was approved.

When digitalization began to show results

When the partnership with Espay was finalized and rolled out across Southeast Sulawesi, it enabled us to implement a QR-based regional levy payment system. Through this system, people could pay their levies via a range of digital platforms, including mobile banking, e-wallets, and any other application supporting the national Quick Response Code Indonesia Standard (QRIS) infrastructure.

For the first time in the region, residents no longer had to carry cash or visit a bank counter just to fulfill their tax payment obligations. By the end of 2024, the impact had begun to show. Several regional agencies responsible for collecting levies recorded revenue growth for the first time in years. Southeast Sulawesi’s ETPD ranking also climbed from 34th to 27th out of 36 provinces in Indonesia.

On a personal note, I was honored to receive an award from Bank Indonesia Southeast Sulawesi as the “Most Accelerative Individual Champion of Regional Government Digitalization.”

Expanding access to digital services

In 2025, we launched a new program called SIGAP, a proactive outreach service designed to bring tax services directly to the public. Rather than waiting for taxpayers to come to government offices, the SIGAP team actively visited communities, businesses, and public spaces to help people access digital payment services.

We also began developing a digital administration platform for businesses, particularly those in the mining sector, which contributes significantly to regional revenues. Through this platform, companies can register, upload documents, and process payments electronically, without needing to visit a government office in person. These incremental steps gradually changed the way people interact with local government services.

A digital payment culture began to take root. Southeast Sulawesi’s digitalization ranking rose again, this time to 16th, and the province went on to receive a national award from the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, recognized as “Rookie of the Year” for the most rapid digitalization acceleration in Indonesia in 2025. And in December 2025, the provincial government recorded a surge in locally generated revenue of more than Rp 100 billion, an increase of 8.12 percent compared to the same period in 2024.

Leaving behind footprints for future reformists

In the end, this is not simply a story about shifting tax payments from physical counters to virtual ones. It is about a process built up layer by layer: establishing trust between institutions, answering the doubts of the bureaucracy, and learning together to understand systems that were genuinely new to everyone involved. The road to change is still far from finished, and there is much work to be done. But this small journey has left behind at least one lesson worth passing on, not because the story is extraordinary, but because it grew from a simple desire to deliver better service to the public.

Perhaps in time, people will no longer remember who started it. But hopefully the spirit behind it endures: that within the bureaucracy there is always room for small ideas to grow, for the courage to try something new, and for the hope of continually improving how the state serves its people.

If this story ever reaches those who feel the same restlessness, perhaps it can serve as a reminder that reform does not need to wait for a grand moment. Sometimes, only courage is needed to take the first step, and the persistence to see it through until it means something, so that this reform does not stop as this story comes to a close, but continues in the transformative steps for those who will come after.

Read winning articles from our first Writing Competition on our site: thereformist.id. The Bahasa Indonesia series can be found in the “Insiders” section. New article every week!

Artikel ini tersedia juga dalam Bahasa Inggris di sini.

Selama saya menempuh studi di Jepang, membayar berbagai kewajiban administrasi hampir tidak pernah terasa merepotkan. Sekitar lima menit berjalan kaki dari apartemen tempat penulis tinggal, terdapat sebuah konbini Yamazaki, toko serba ada yang buka hampir sepanjang hari.

Di toko minimalis itu, saya biasanya menyempatkan diri membayar berbagai tagihan mulai dari iuran kesehatan, biaya sewa, hingga beberapa kewajiban administrasi lainnya. Prosesnya sangat sederhana: saya hanya perlu menyerahkan slip pembayaran kepada seorang kasir, lalu dengan senyuman yang ramah, ia memindai slip tersebut seolah itu hanyalah transaksi biasa, seperti jika saya membeli segelas kopi hangat beserta cemilannya. Setelah transaksi selesai, slip tersebut diberi cap merah khas Jepang, sebuah hanko, yang sekilas mengingatkan pada stempel yang sering kita lihat dalam kisah-kisah kolosal Asia.

Tidak ada antrean panjang, tidak perlu berpindah dari satu loket ke loket lainnya, dan bisa dilakukan kapan saja, bahkan di akhir pekan. Cukup satu petugas kasir dengan satu alat pindai sederhana, semua kewajiban tuntas dalam hitungan menit. Pengalaman yang terasa sederhana, namun dari situ saya merasakan kehadiran pemerintah Jepang, bahkan tanpa pernah memilih atau bertatap muka secara langsung.

Namun, ketika kembali ke Indonesia pada tahun 2023, realitas yang saya temui di kampung halaman di Sulawesi Tenggara terasa begitu berbeda. Untuk membayar satu jenis pajak kendaraan, saya harus mengantre di kantor Samsat selama tiga puluh menit, bahkan kadang berjam-jam lamanya. Proses yang seharusnya sederhana sering kali terasa panjang karena masyarakat harus melalui beberapa loket pelayanan hanya untuk menyelesaikan satu transaksi pembayaran.

Perbedaan pengalaman tersebut memunculkan pertanyaan sederhana di benak saya, “Mengapa layanan publik yang seharusnya memudahkan masyarakat justru sering kali terasa begitu merepotkan?”

Pertanyaan itu pula yang kemudian mendorong saya untuk mengajukan perpindahan dari kantor lama saya di Biro Ekonomi Pemerintah Provinsi Sulawesi Tenggara ke Badan Pendapatan Daerah (Bapenda) Provinsi Sulawesi Tenggara, instansi yang secara langsung menangani pengelolaan pajak dan retribusi daerah.

Pucuk dicinta, ulampun tiba

Dengan melihat latar belakang pendidikan serta fokus penelitian penulis mengenai pengelolaan pendapatan daerah selama studi di Jepang, pimpinan yang baru kemudian mempercayakan saya untuk menjadi person in charge (PIC) untuk program Percepatan dan Perluasan Digitalisasi Daerah (P2DD). Penugasan tersebut sejalan dengan tujuan awal saya, yakni memudahkan masyarakat untuk membayar pajak dan retribusinya.

Namun, tugas tersebut dimulai dari kondisi yang tidak mudah. Pada saat itu, Sulawesi Tenggara berada di posisi ke-34 dari 34 provinsi di Indonesia dalam implementasi Elektronifikasi Transaksi Pemerintah Daerah (ETPD). Artinya, provinsi kami berada di peringkat paling bawah secara nasional.

Indeks ini pada dasarnya mencerminkan layanan yang selama ini dirasakan oleh masyarakat Sulawesi Tenggara, di mana sebagian besar pembayaran pajak dan retribusi daerah masih dilakukan secara tunai melalui loket-loket pembayaran. Kondisi ini sangat tidak ideal karena sangat merepotkan masyarakat, terutama bagi mereka yang berdomisili jauh dari pusat pelayanan.

Memulai reformasi di tengah keterbatasan

Awal tahun 2024, kami mulai mendorong digitalisasi pembayaran daerah. Tantangan pertama yang dihadapi adalah keterbatasan infrastruktur. Bank Pembangunan Daerah kami, Bank Sultra, saat itu masih dalam tahap awal memperkuat sistem digitalnya. Sebagai mitra utama pemerintah daerah dalam pengelolaan transaksi keuangan, bank daerah memegang peran penting dalam ekosistem pembayaran daerah. Namun, kesiapan teknologi untuk mendukung kanal pembayaran digital terintegrasi, seperti payment gateway, QR payment, dan integrasi multi-platform, belum sepenuhnya tersedia.

Situasi ini menempatkan kami pada pilihan yang tidak mudah. Menunggu kesiapan sistem berarti mempertahankan kondisi yang tidak efisien, sementara memaksakan perubahan tanpa dukungan infrastruktur juga berisiko menimbulkan masalah baru.

Pada akhirnya, kami memilih pendekatan kolaboratif. Melalui diskusi yang difasilitasi oleh Kantor Perwakilan Bank Indonesia Sulawesi Tenggara, kami mulai mengeksplorasi kemungkinan bekerja sama dengan penyedia payment gateway eksternal untuk membangun fondasi awal ekosistem pembayaran digital.

Bank Indonesia kemudian merekomendasikan Espay, sebuah perusahaan teknologi pembayaran yang memiliki pengalaman dalam mengintegrasikan sistem pembayaran pemerintah dengan jaringan pembayaran digital nasional. Rekomendasi tersebut menjadi titik awal kerja sama antara Bapenda Sulawesi Tenggara dan Espay, meski tentu membangun kolaborasi ini tidaklah sederhana.

Menghadapi skeptisisme birokrasi

Untuk menerapkan sistem pembayaran digital, kami membutuhkan dukungan anggaran sekitar Rp 195 juta untuk instalasi, biaya sewa, dan integrasi infrastruktur payment gateway. Jumlah ini sebenarnya relatif kecil dalam konteks anggaran pemerintah provinsi. Namun, penerimaan sektor retribusi daerah yang cenderung fluktuatif selama 5 tahun terakhir membuat Badan Pengelola Keuangan dan Aset Daerah (BPKAD) mempertanyakan urgensi investasi ini.

Dalam satu rapat, mereka mengutarakan bahwa mengalokasikan anggaran tambahan untuk sektor yang tidak stabil tentu bukan keputusan yang mudah karena bukankah tidak ada jaminan bahwa sistem baru ini akan memberikan dampak positif bagi penerimaan daerah? Malah justru bisa merugikan keuangan daerah!

Untuk menjawab keraguan tersebut, saya menjawabnya dengan mengajukan balik satu pertanyaan:

“Bagaimana kita bisa berharap ada perubahan jika pendekatan yang kita gunakan setiap tahun selalu sama? Digitalisasi sektor retribusi adalah pendekatan yang baru dan wajib untuk dicoba”

Saya mencoba meyakinkan bahwa dalam upaya seperti ini tidak ada jaminan yang mutlak. Yang bisa kita lakukan adalah berikhtiar berdasarkan pengalaman dan praktik terbaik dari daerah lain seperti Jakarta, Jawa Barat, Jawa Timur, dan sekitarnya. Jika sistem ini berhasil, maka ia dapat menjadi fondasi bagi perubahan yang lebih besar. Namun, jika tidak memberikan dampak yang diharapkan pun, setidaknya ada proses transfer of knowledge bagi internal pemerintah maupun mitra strategis sehingga keduanya jadi punya pengalaman belajar dan gambaran untuk membangun sistem serupa tanpa dikenakan biaya lagi. Argumen singkat itu terdengar logis bagi mereka, sehingga akhirnya pembiayaan pun disetujui.

Ketika digitalisasi mulai memberikan dampak

Kerja sama dengan Espay akhirnya disetujui dan mulai diterapkan di Sulawesi Tenggara. Perubahan ini memungkinkan kami untuk menerapkan sistem pembayaran retribusi daerah berbasis QRIS. Melalui sistem ini, masyarakat dapat membayar retribusi melalui berbagai platform digital seperti mobile banking, dompet elektronik, maupun aplikasi lain yang mendukung QRIS.

Untuk pertama kalinya, masyarakat tidak lagi harus membawa uang tunai atau datang ke loket bank hanya untuk menunaikan kewajiban perpajakannya. Pada akhir tahun 2024, dampaknya mulai terlihat. Beberapa perangkat daerah yang memungut retribusi mulai mencatatkan pertumbuhan penerimaan untuk pertama kalinya dalam beberapa tahun terakhir. Selain itu, peringkat ETPD Sultra pun meningkat dari ke-34 menjadi ke-27 dari 36 provinsi di Indonesia. Secara pribadi, saya juga dianugerahi penghargaan sebagai “Insan Penggerak Digitalisasi Pemerintah Daerah Paling Akseleratif” oleh Bank Indonesia Sulawesi Tenggara.

Memperluas akses layanan digital

Selanjutnya, pada tahun 2025, kami kembali meluncurkan program SIGAP, sebuah layanan jemput bola yang dirancang untuk mendekatkan layanan pajak kepada masyarakat. Alih-alih menunggu wajib pajak datang ke kantor pemerintah, Tim SIGAP secara aktif mendatangi komunitas, pelaku usaha, dan ruang publik untuk membantu masyarakat mengakses layanan pembayaran digital.

Selain itu, kami juga mulai mengembangkan platform administrasi digital bagi perusahaan, terutama bagi sektor pertambangan yang memiliki kontribusi besar terhadap penerimaan daerah.

Melalui platform ini, perusahaan dapat melakukan registrasi, mengunggah dokumen, dan memproses pembayaran secara elektronik tanpa harus datang langsung ke kantor pemerintah. Langkah-langkah kecil ini secara bertahap mengubah cara masyarakat berinteraksi dengan layanan pemerintah daerah.

Budaya pembayaran digital mulai berkembang. Peringkat digitalisasi Sulawesi Tenggara kembali meningkat menjadi ke-16 dari 36 provinsi di Indonesia, dan provinsi kami kemudian menerima penghargaan nasional dari Kementerian Koordinator Perekonomian “Rookie of the Year” sebagai daerah dengan percepatan digitalisasi paling masif di Indonesia pada tahun 2025.

Lebih dari itu, pada Desember 2025, Pemerintah Provinsi Sulawesi Tenggara mencatat lonjakan Pendapatan Asli Daerah (PAD) sebesar lebih dari Rp 100 miliar, naik sebesar 8,12 persen jika dibandingkan dengan periode yang sama tahun 2024.

Tentang jejak yang ditinggalkan

Pada akhirnya, kisah sederhana ini bukan hanya tentang peralihan pelayanan pajak dari loket tunai menuju bilik virtual, melainkan suatu proses yang dibangun secara berjenjang mulai dari membangun kepercayaan antarinstitusi, menjawab keraguan birokrasi, hingga belajar bersama memahami sistem yang benar-benar baru bagi banyak pihak.

Walaupun langkah perubahan ini masih jauh dari garis finis karena masih banyak pekerjaan rumah yang harus diselesaikan, setidaknya perjalanan kecil ini telah meninggalkan satu pelajaran berharga yang layak untuk diwariskan. Bukan karena kisah ini luar biasa, melainkan karena ia lahir dari niat sederhana untuk menghadirkan pelayanan yang lebih baik bagi masyarakat.

Mungkin, di masa depan, orang tidak lagi mengingat siapa yang memulainya. Tetapi semoga semangat di balik cerita ini tetap hidup, bahwa di dalam birokrasi selalu ada ruang bagi gagasan kecil untuk tumbuh, bagi keberanian untuk mencoba hal baru, dan bagi harapan untuk terus memperbaiki cara negara melayani warganya.

Jika suatu hari kisah ini sampai kepada mereka yang sedang merasakan kegelisahan yang sama, barangkali ia dapat menjadi pengingat bahwa reformasi tidak harus menunggu momentum besar.

Kadang ia hanya membutuhkan satu keberanian untuk mulai melangkah dan ketekunan untuk menjalani hingga memberi dampak berarti, agar reformasi ini tidak berhenti pada testimoni penulis di ujung cerita ini, melainkan terus berlanjut dalam langkah-langkah transformatif yang mungkin akan ditulis oleh mereka yang datang setelahnya.