strategies in public administration

SELECTED STRATEGIES

INPUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION

by

Ferdinand Parado, CERodel P. Hacla, ECE

FACTORS THAT PROMOTE OR DETER POPULAR PARTICIPATION IN DEVELOPMENT: THE PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE

Objectives:

This study is an attempt to describe and

analyze the Philippine experience in

promoting participation in development,

paying particular attention to factors

that promote or deter popular

participation. More specifically, it

seeks to answer the following questions:

1. What has been the country‟s

experience in promoting popular

participation in the government‟s

development programs?

2. Given the country‟s experience, what

factors may be identified as

facilitating or obstructing popular

participation in development?


3. Given this assessment, whatrecommendations may be forwarded tostress those that facilitate andminimize those that impede popularparticipation?

POLICIES AND MECHANISMS:

This section describes the „barangay”as the lowest level of the localgovernment, the establishment of theNational Economic and DevelopmentAuthority (NEDA) and the RegionalDevelopment Councils (RDCs) intended todecentralize and bring governmentcloser to the people, the country‟srural development program. These areillustrations of policies andmechanisms for popular participation.


Initially conceived as a mechanism for

citizen participation, the barangays

were observed to have been transformed

into “administrative channels of

government as part of the delivery of

services to the people”.

Despite doubts as to its effectiveness

as a mechanism for the political

participation, the barangay is viewed as

a possible Filipino alternative to the

Western model because it is founded on

Filipino collectivism. Taking its roots

from the family‟s collectivist nature,

the barangay is viewed as

correspondingly collective.


The Philippine Rural Development Program

- is built on the principle that

development is a government-people

enterprise. Its activities aim at

revitalizing community and local

institutions through the development of

awareness among all segments of the

community and the promotion of self-

reliance and active participation of the

people.


The major objectives of the rural

development program were:

1. to promote and encourage citizen

interest, understanding and active

participation and increased capacity

for initiation and resourcefulness for

a meaningful and active role in local

and national affairs;

2. to stimulate the understanding of

community projects/activities to

promote socioeconomic advancement;

3. to encourage the organization,

revitalization and/or strengthening of

institutions necessary to achieve the

desired changes;


4. To develop local leadership for them

to acquire the confidence and ability

to lead decisively in the improvement

of their communities;

5. To promote integrated comprehensive

planning in local levels to achieve

maximum mobilization of efforts and

resources for development;

6. To encourage and maximize

coordination of technical agencies,

local government, private and civic

organizations engaged in rural

development.


The government policy underlying its rural

development program was essentially people-based

with the government taking a secondary role. The

major responsibilities of the two sectors in

their joint understanding can be described as

follows:

Rural People

1. Determine their own needs or crystallize

their most pressing problems and set

priorities for their treatment;

2. Plan a course of action to satisfy their

needs and solve their problems;

3. Marshal available local resources (money,

materials, equipment, and labor) which may

be utilized in program implementation;

4. DO the work themselves.


The Government

1. Provide the initial stimulus for

self-help development and set up a

system for continuing training and

education of the people;

2. Provide the technical know-how for

development planning and assist the

people in the preparation of

development plans;

3. Given material assistance on a need

basis, i.e., those materials that

cannot be obtained in the locality;

4. Help the people in the program

implementation and assist in

evaluating the progress of

development work.


Looking at popular participation as a four

stage process which builds up from one

stage to the other, four component phases

maybe identified:

(1) the individual level,

(2) the community,

(3) the government/other sectors,

(4) the greater society.

The categorization proceeds from a simple

to a more complex unit of analysis with

each level interacting with each other.

The characteristics of these four sectors

are the important factors that promote

popular participation.


Promoting Conditions Impeding Conditions

1. Realizes that what he thinks and feels is important and that he can think and talk intelligently.

2. Is confident that he has the capability to mold himself and his environment.

3. Is conscious and aware of the societal factors that impinge on him as an individual.

4. Has actual experience in participating in group problem analysis or problem solving situations.

1. Feels that what he thinks is not important; can hardly articulate his thoughts.

2. Feels incapable of acting on his own or transforming the environment.

3. Is not aware of the socio-political-economic conditions that influence his life.

4. Has no notion of nor experience in any collective involvement which entails discussion and analysis of issues with other individuals.

INDIVIDUAL LEVEL


The enumeration factors at the

individual level suggests that the

popular participation may no longer be a

concept in search of methodology.

Rather, it implies that community or

organization may be the methodology for

popular participation. However, the

community organization is observed that

it appears the most important approach

to popular participation. Community

organization has its own set of

procedures and organizing principles

along conflict-confrontation lines but

in actual practice, many modifications

are accommodated mostly in the degree to

which the conflict confrontation is

pursued.


Bureaucratic processes in large organizations

have instilled in most government employees a

respect for technocratic knowledge and expertise

for their clients‟ capabilities in

conceptualizing, designing and implementing

programs.

GOVERNMENT LEVEL

Beyond the characteristics of the community andgovernment are broader societal factors operating ina developing country which implies rather thanpromote popular participation. These are:

1. Colonial Experience – suppresses the people‟sdesire or capacity to participate in social,political or economic decisions affecting them.

SOCIETAL LEVEL


2. Poverty – concerned more with survival, poor

people who have to eke out a living do not

understand why they must participate before

they get the long needed and much delayed

services which may spell life or death for

them.

3. Ineffectiveness of participation as a means of

getting service. The people‟s experience that

participation does not materially affect the

delivery of services to any group of society

serves to negate any effort directed at

strengthening popular participation.

POLICIES, STRATEGIES AND ADMINISTRATIVE IMPLEMENTATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES

As early as 1988, the Philippine government

had promulgated a Philippine Strategy for

Sustainable Development (PSSD) through the

Department of Environment and Natural

Resources (DENR), to address the adverse

impact on growth and development caused by

the pollution of environment and the misuse

and depletion of the natural resources. The

DENR adopted ten strategies which could have

been the basic guidelines for the

environmental and natural resources

preservation in the Philippines. These are

the following:


1. The environmental factors must be integrated in theformulation and decision making process of concernedgovernment agencies and units in such that thereshould be provisions for the Natural ResourcesAccounting, Environmental Impact Assessment and LandUse Planning.

2. There should be proper costing of the naturalresources and the price should be built into the costof damages done to the environment. The users of theenvironment have to pay the cost of whatever damagesthere will be.

3. The property rights reform should be in place so thatthere should be regulations to the people‟s access tothe natural resources.

4. There should be an established integrated protectedareas that should conserve the wild life and uniqueecosystem that should conserve the wild life andunique ecosystems in order to preserve the geneticresources for scientific, educational, cultural andhistorical values.


5. There should be rehabilitation of the degraded

ecosystems which meant, the reforestation of the

denuded watersheds, replantation of mangroves,

clean-up and control of pollution, and revival

of the biologically dead rivers, and also the

transplantation of sea grasses.

6. Industries must invest to strengthen their

facilities for the management of their residual

wastes and the pollution that they have caused

by putting up more technological innovations as

soon as they could. The pollution control law

must therefore, be strengthened. Industries and

firms must install pollution control facilities

which could be done by collective action by

users group of firms in creating their

facilities for waste waters.


7. The development plan must integrate the

population and the social impact programs

with the intention that the population factor

should be highlighted as the real asset in

building a strong industrial base in the

production of livelihood projects and the

preservation of the ecosystem and natural

resources. The population management program

should emphasize the benefits of spacing

births and the population distribution must

be directed to less densely populated and

less environmentally sensitive areas.

8. Economic growth must be induced in the rural

areas where majority of people live.

Employment must be developed in the rural

areas to increase the people‟s income.


9. Schools curricula for elementary and secondary levels must integrate environmental education and social values supportive of the environmental protection and commitment if the government.

10.Citizens‟ participation and constituency building must be encouraged so that non-government organizations could assist in the environmental protection and managements efforts of the DENR.

Other government units were expected to assist the DENR in implementing its ten strategies, namely, the agencies concerned with population, environment, natural resources, agriculture, industry, infrastructures, energy and agrarian reforms. All government agencies were also expected to integrate sustainable development and environmental objectives in their policies to provide the support services to the DENR strategies.


The Philippine strategy for the

protection of the environment and the

natural resources for sustainable

development have many points. The

problem, however, is how sustainable

indeed could the effort be in

pursuing all the policies and

strategies. Can the country maintain

a carrying capacity of its natural

resources for the maintenance of its

population up to the end of the

century.

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