Organizing for development

Title

Creator

Trinidad, Juanita G.

Language

English

Source

The Republic Volume III (Issue No.8) 1-15 August 1978

Subject

Political systems

Parliamentary government

Parliamentary practice -- Philippines

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

[The never-ending process of political and social development continually exerts new demands and pressures on government and necessitates periodic reassessments of governmental structures and operations to ensure they respond to the changing conditions and needs of society. With the shift from a presidential to a parliamentary form of government and the conversion of departments into ministries, the second phase of the Integrated Reorganization Plan (IRP), formulated in 1972 by the Presidential Commission on Reorganization (PCR), is now under way. The plan was submitted to the Batasang Pambansa, which approved it in principle. This article comprises the interview with Dr. Armand V. Fabella, PCR Chairman, clarifying some aspects of the new system.]

Fulltext

THE REPUBLIC Organizing for development by Juanita G. Trinidad The never-ending process of political and social devel opment continually exerts new demands and pres sures on government and necessitates periodic reassess ments of governmental structures and operations to ensure they respond to the changing conditions and needs of society. With the shift from a presiden tial to a parliamen tary form of government and the conversion of de partments into ministries, the second phase of the Integrated Reorganization Plan /1RP), formulated in 1972 by the Presidential Commission on Reorgani zation (PCR), is now under way. The plan was sub mitted to the Batasang Panibansa. which approved it in principle. In an interview with The Republic, Dr. Armand V. Fabella, PCR chairman, clarifies some aspects of the new system. The Republic: What are the basic differences between the new government plan and the system which previously existed? What are the advantages of the changes? Dr. Fabella: Our government was modeled along Amer ican lines, with three branches of government the executive, legislative and judicial-possessed of suffi cient checks and balances to keep anyone from be coming too strong, and with the thrust on the provi sion of general government services. The problem with this kind of government is that it places stress on the correct decision^ But in order to get a correct decision, you need time, you need people or groups getting together to discuss the problem and working to find a solution. The discus sions you get would probably be good, but it might take forever to get an answer. That we can’t afford. We need a developmenf-oriented system. What do you mean by a development-oriented system? I mean a system that is very much aware of the need forgetting things done faster, a governmental structure in which people can make decisions quickly. This is possible if you give people sufficient authority, whether at the national, regional or barangay level. There are dangers in this. Most often, the danger is with the per son who is supposed to decide. He can make mis takes; he may tend to make the wrong decisions. An other danger is that he will tend to abuse his power. But even if you take both factors into considera tion, the important thing is that decisions will be made faster. Make your decisions fast, get things done. If you make mistakes, sorry na lang, but the govern ment moves. The new system frowns on the next-in-rank concept for promotion. What is the new policy? The next-in-rank approach Tor promotion has severe limitations. Let’s say that I am running an office and you are my subordinate, my next-in-command. If for some reason I leave the office, the post becomes vacant and you have a claim to my position. You can say, “I’m next in rank, I’m entitled to that posi tion.” That may be nice for you but it’s not neces sarily good for the government. We are civil servants and the government is entitled to the best services it Manila post office: one of government’s prime reorganization targets. OEDB staffers reviewing job applications: the government exists for only one purpose-to serve the people. can get, and it may not get that from you. All we did was expand the concept of the next-in-rank. Let’s say I plan on leaving my position. 1 tell the employees, “All of you on a certain level will be considered for my position.” This provides some sense of competition, a drive to prove capabilities. Otherwise, everyone just sits and waits to go up in due course of time! As happened in many cases in the past, if the good ones leave the office, natitiraiyongmgahihirttay-hintay lang. Before you know it, the whole operation is filled with people who got there simply by patiently waiting! How will the new system eliminate duplication or overlapping of services? It won’t. It will try to avoid it, but the government is organized to deal with priority areas and that brings overlaps. For example, if we say that housing is a pri ority area, we create the Ministry of Human Settle ments. If we say that tourism is important, we create a Ministry of Tourism. We may say some other agen cies are not important, so we abolish them. What I’m driving at is, with the many priority areas that have cropped up, it has become very difficult to indicate just what is the responsibility of’an individual depart ment. Thus, as we have more ministries, there are many possible overlaps in function. We are trying to keep overlaps minimal to de fine who is responsible for what. We have developed what we call “exclusive responsibility” and “primary responsibility.” For example, when we talk about auditing systems, we say that the Commission on Audit (COA) has exclusive responsibility. When we talk about training, we say that the Civil Service Commis sion (CSC) has primary responsibility, because the CSC cannot claim that it is the only one that trains. Who can construct dams? Only Public Works. Who can provide medical services? Not only the Ministry of Health. The Army does also. Parenthetically, two other important things are to bring more and better services to the people and to accelerate the development process. Of course, when you bring services to the people, you are in effect accelerating or improving the development base. Every thing else comes from these basic thrusts. Are government-owned and controlled corporations included in the new reorganization? Yes, they are, in the sense that government-owned and controlled operations have been under the Office of the President which has over 200 offices directly under it. These are now being divided among the various ministries, making it easier to coordinate related activ ities. What in your opinion is the most important aspect of the new reorganization scheme? Planning. The planning process must take cognizance of many factors, particularly having to do with the improvement of the civil service, the decentralization of Malacafiang, regionalization and setting up a stan dard department structure. With the parliamentary form, there are questions as to who is responsible for what and who reports to whom. Take the new politi cal deputy minister-even his responsibilities are still unclear. Ministers will have their deputies answerable to them but are on an equal footing with them in Par liament. These arc among the things which still have to be straightened out. What major government policies will the new system implement? Since 1972 we have stressed regional development, planning and the building of a career executive service. You can compare the government to an army. Though the army is the only entity relied upon to fight, not everybody in the army fights. The one who really fights is the infantry soldier. Behind him are cooks, quar termasters, clerks, physicians, drivers. But they are only secondary;the one who counts is the combat soldier. Therefore, you measure the efficiency of an army in terms of the ratio between the soldier and the num ber of support troops that back him up. Similarly, the government exists for only one purpose: to serve the people- And serving the p,eople is not an abstract concept; it is specific. The govern ment serves the people when somebody in government comes in contact with the people. For example, a doctor serving in the rural areas and actually staying with the people is directly serving the government. On the other hand, the Bureau of Internal Revenue giving medical aid to BIR personnel is only indirect ly serving the government. - What we are trying to do now is make sure that most of the people in the government are in direct contact or are actually serving the people. How do we do this? There are two ways: You don’t ask the peo ple to come to you. You get government workers out in the field to stay with the people. That is a very important element in the development of the regions. The second element is that in any office, wheth er serving the people directly or not, we have line per sonnel and staff personnel. Line personnel are those who are actually engaged in the operation, while the staff personnel advise the head of the department on what to do. What is the progress report on the new reorganiza tion? What has been accomplished so far? Implementation of the IRP actually started in 1972. The secondary phase has begun with the conversion of the government into a parliamentary form. The fact is that even the original reorganization took into con sideration the possibility of a parliamentary govern ment. Now that it is definitely parliamentary, we must make distinctions between political and career posi tions. Previously a department head was only an alter e_go of the president. Under the parliamentary system, there are no more alter egos; all officials have power in their own right. The thrust, therefore,is really with respect to the regional or subregional levels of government. Putting it another way, jpst how does one go about coordinat ing government activities at provincial and municipal levels, between national and local governments? This is the problem, especially now that every department wants to have its own units from provincial down to barangay level. Every department has a regional of fice, but each one is now saying that underneath the regional office, there should be a provincial office, and underneath the provincial office, a municipal of fice. To be sure, this is reaching out to the grass roots, but it is very expensive.

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