Contents

398 Public Administration in Southeast Asia

20.1 Introduction

The problem of bureaucratic performance persists today as an enduring and long-standing concern in the Philippines. As in other countries, both developed and developing, bureaucratic performance in the Philippines has been plagued with recurring issues of bureaucratic competencies, efficiency, accountability, transparency, and responsiveness, among others. Over the years, various reform measures and initiatives in the country have been instituted or adopted to improve the performance of public agencies and instrumentalities, both at the national and local levels.

This chapter discusses performance management reforms that have been launched in response to problems of underperformance of Philippine bureaucracy. Admittedly, the causes of underperforming institutions in the country are many and varied, and perhaps, in some cases agency or sector-specific. Likewise, the causes can be traced or attributed to such factors as organizational ethos and temperaments, human frailties, weak leadership, policy gaps, poor systems and procedures, declining resources, and political intervention, among others.

In an era of growing citizen disenchantment and activism in the management of public affairs, the performance of the bureaucracy has become an important consideration by which the perception and acceptance of government are judged or determined. The years that have been characterized by the expanding involvement and intervention of civil society organizations and various interest and pressure groups in the shaping of policies and the delivery of public goods and services have shown the significance of making bureaucracy work better and perform according to the expectations of its public.

The chapter thus presents at the outset, an overview of Philippine bureaucracy and the problems that beset it. This part provides a quick random discussion of Philippine bureaucracy and the maladies that afflict it. In so doing, it identifies approaches and efforts instituted in the past to make the bureaucracy perform better.

The initiatives introduced during the past 10 years (1999–2009) to address current problems are subsequently discussed. A number of reform measures have been introduced in the Philippines in the various facets and aspects of government operations. These cover important components such as the financial system, mainly auditing and budgeting, expenditures, disbursements and procurement, manpower distribution, and delivery systems. The discussion therefore will attempt to present a number of policies adopted to put across reforms in the areas of audit as exemplified by the introduction of a new government auditing system (NGAS), the reform of the public management expenditure program under the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF) adopted in the medium-term development plan, the procurement system, through the omnibus procurement law, and efforts to adopt a rightsizing policy to ensure having the appropriate size of personnel manning the bureaucracy.1

1For the purposes of the present discussion, “performance” as it relates to public administration or the bureaucracy can be construed as the efficient, effective, and rational delivery of public goods and services, the creation of opportunities or the exercise of government’s authority in its regulatory and service functions to fulfi ll its mandate to serve and protect the general public interest and welfare. As Van der Walle notes, definitions of performance are should be “composed of performance values that are multifaceted and even sometimes contradictory” such as transparency, responsiveness, sustainability, legitimacy, and sensitivity to gender issues as well as the disabled and vulnerable sectors, among others. He also asserts that any definition should be “acceptable to the widest possible range of actors” (Van de Walle, 2008: 267).

T he term “performance” and “performance management” therefore may mean different things to different administrative systems and people. This chapter follows the definition adopted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which defines performance management as how a government transforms its highest priorities into strategic outputs that are cascaded down to organizations and individuals, such as through improved quality and effectiveness of programs (2001: 10). Many performance management initiatives in the Philippines over the past decade involve financial and human resource management.

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Performance Management Reforms in the Philippines 399

20.2Problems and Challenges Facing Bureaucracy in the Philippines Today

The demands for bureaucracies today to perform and fulfill mandated functions reflect an array of enormous and burgeoning pressures. They involve such realities as marked rising expectations by a potentially alienated or frustrated populace, declining public funds and resources, and such continuing ills as corruption, red tape, low morale, incompetence, and problems of recruiting capable and qualified personnel in a situation where salary levels are low and way below those received by workers in the private sector.

As such, public sector reform in the Philippines has been a continuing concern, like the bureaucracies of other countries, developed or developing, where reform has practically persisted as an enduring and recurring agenda (Reyes, 2009).

The foremost issue perhaps that affects the performance of the bureaucracy and its efficient delivery of services in the Philippines is the size and distribution of manpower in Philippine bureaucracy. The bureaucracy in the Philippines roughly consists of agencies and instrumentalities at the national level of government, namely, regular government departments and its agencies and subdivisions, government-owned and controlled corporations, regulatory bodies, constitutional commissions, and those operating or manning the local levels of government and its instrumentalities. The local government system in the Philippines is comprised of the provincial governments, the chartered cities and municipalities, and special districts as the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and Metropolitan Manila.

With roughly a little over 1.5 million employees consisting of employees at the national and local levels, as well as the uniformed services (i.e., the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines), bureaucracy in the country serves an estimated population of about 91 million Filipinos in 2009. It is also over centralized. As can be seen in Figure 20.1, the distribution of personnel is quite lopsided and uneven.2

Most of the civil service personnel are concentrated at the national level, and are mostly employed in the education sector. Only about 23% are employed at the local levels of government, where primary and important interactions with citizens are made and conformably where delivery of basic service is expected to be accomplished.

With undermanned and understaffed employees, particularly at the grassroots or the community levels, it could be said that Philippine bureaucracy is hard put to deliver a good performance compared to other countries. Sto. Tomas (2003: 420), for instance, cites that Canada “has two million civil servants to service a population of about 24 million.” She thus asserts that, “[t]he Philippine bureaucracy may not be the bloated monster it has been pictured to be if we are to factor in the size of the clientele we are serving” (Sto. Tomas, 2003: 424).

Mangahas (1993), in an earlier study, compared and analyzed the ratio of the number of government employees of various developed and developing countries in relation to population. Mangahas, using Civil Service Commission (CSC) estimates of the number of government

2These are estimates based on a report on a publication of the government of the Republic of the Philippines, World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank, 2003. At the time of this study, no updated data exist. Prior to data have been apparently made. Prior to the GRP, WB, and ADB publication, Patricia Sto. Tomas, former chairperson of the Philippine Civil Service Commission (CSC), a constitutional body, decried in fact the lack of “accurate, updated information on the bureaucracy” as bedeviling the civil service (see Sto. Tomas, 2003). It is, however, a safe assumption that the number made in 2001 has been maintained considering government efforts to control the size of the bureaucracy through such downsizing policies as attrition, hiring freeze, non-fi lling of vacant positions, and the abolition of government offices. A related study is that of Mangahas (1993).

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compounded by problems of a dysfunctional tax administration system where target tax revenues generally fall behind tax collection targets (Briones, 2003; Boncodin, 2003). The problem is further aggravated by leakages stemming from corruption and wastages.

Like other bureaucracies, corruption remains a scourge in the government. Conspicuously contributing to the problem of underperformance in the country is the important problem of graft and corruption. Both political and bureaucratic corruption has undermined the quality and efficiency of services in the Philippines, thus compromising performance.

Over the years, vigorous initiatives have been launched to contain graft and corruption in the Philippines which has hampered performance especially in the efficient delivery of public services in the country. The measures adopted to contain these are many and involve the establishment of anti-corruption agencies as well as streamlining policies and procedures.3

Corrupt practices impair government operations and performance because public funds are siphoned off or drawn away from their intended or mandated use, and diverted to the personal bank accounts of government officials both from the bureaucracy and elected politicians. Corrupt activities that impair or compromise performance are many and creative—rent-seeking bureaucratic officials, bribery, embezzlement of public funds, ghost employees, kickback and overpricing of supplies and services, collusion with suppliers or service providers such as contractors, rigging of bidding processes, and several other methods that are often tolerated and abetted by government officials.

Commissioner Mary Ann Fernandez of the CSC in the Philippines points out that in a span of a little over 50 years, there had been 15 presidential anti-corruption agencies established to combat corruption in the country (Fernandez, 2004).

The magnitude and effects of the corruption problem in the Philippines is further described by Fernandez:

The impact of corruption has been quantified in numerous studies in the country. Last year, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) estimated that the Philippine government lost almost US$382 million due to fraudulent practices in procurement services and US$1.3 billion for government build-operate-transfer road projects through leakages in transactions and purchases. During the last 20 years, the estimated amount lost due to corruption is US$48 billion. (Fernandez, 2004: 92)

Coupled with these are such problems as poorly established systems and procedures that either open opportunities for corruption or result in red tape (Reyes, 1982). Linked to corruption, rules and regulation, for instance, designed to contain corrupt practices are circumvented or manipulated to intentionally create delays or inaction until a client comes across with a bribe. Thus, unscrupulous bureaucrats may require documentation in various government transactions, which may be onerous and cumbersome, but can be set aside if a client is willing to bribe his way to avoid complying with onerous requirements.4

3The specialized laws that represent measures to contain graft and corruption in the Philippines can be found and compiled in Office of the Ombudsman (2004), as revised. Other pertinent laws, however, are scattered throughout several laws and issuances. There are also a number of studies and commentaries made on graft and corruption in the Philippines, such as Carlos (2004), Alfi ler (1979), and Endriga (1979). A good reference is Carino (1986), who compared and analyzed corrupt practices in selected countries in Asia.

4See Carlos (2004) Chapter V: “What Needs to be Done?” pp. 235–99, for a more detailed discussion of the ills and challenges afflicting Philippine bureaucracy.

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