Public governance and little kingdoms
Now that we are about to have another election, I think it is also time to understand better what public governance is all about for that is what serving the government is all about.
Public governance can be defined as the process of decision-making and the manner by which decisions are implemented in government which maybe at the local, regional or national level. There is also such a thing as corporate governance which refers to the way a profit oriented business is run in order to meet their profit and non-profit objectives. Any process leads to certain results and good public governance can only lead to development if that indeed is the goal set by the concerned local, regional or national government unit.
In general, all nations of the world aim for development. However, development need not only mean economic development or the year to year increase in the gross domestic product or total output usually reported at the end of the quarter or year by all nations in the world to measure their economic performance. Development means more than economic development as we have to consider also the social, political and other aspects of human existence that we care about.
Development is real and meaningful to the people only when they have well-paying and secure jobs, live in decent homes, and free to exercise their political, religious and other rights as human beings. There is real development when poverty is eliminated which gives the people more opportunities to realize their aspirations in life beyond merely providing for basic needs.
If we find a place underdeveloped with many people unemployed or underemployed and deprived of even the most basic things needed for humane existence, it can only mean that that place has failed due to poor governance.
What characterizes good governance?
Most writings would say that good governance is participatory, consensus oriented, accountable, transparent, responsive, effective and efficient, equitable and inclusive, and follows the rule of law and that following one of these precepts also requires that the rest are also followed in order to succeed. A well-governed society characterized by these precepts naturally has more chances of developing than those badly governed.
What makes one country achieve development while others do not?
The answers are many and varied, depending on who you ask or what you read. Some would say its culture but others would say it is the weather, geography or even ignorance of what the right policies are. There is one book however which gives a different answer. The book, “Why Nations Fail” says that “none of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest-growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence?”
Written by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, the book argued that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or the lack of it). As an example, it cited Korea, a remarkably homogeneous nation, where one finds the people of North Korea among the poorest on earth while their counterparts in South Korea are among the richest.
What did the south do that was missing in the north? The south “forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories.”
In our case in the Philippines, it is also sad to note that we are now very much behind in development when compared with our close neighbors in Asia that were once like us or much poorer than us before and after the last war. There is no question therefore that the Philippines had suffered from poor governance years after years since the last war. Now, we not only have one of the lowest per capita incomes in Asia; we also have the most inequitable distribution of income which makes poverty even more prevalent as the wealth is concentrated only in the hands of the few.
We are not lacking in good policies to promote development, particularly, regional and local development. At the regional level, beginning in the mid-’70s, we already institutionalized a regional body entrusted with the planning and coordination of the development in each region. This was followed in 1991 by the Local Government Code which gives the local government units more resources and power to undertake grass roots level programs to promote local development.
Sadly, until now, most of the regions and their component local government units in the country remain underdeveloped. For example, government data shows that Metro Manila or what we know now as the National Capital Region accounted only for about 30 percent of the total output of the country in 1975. In 2011 this increase to 36 percent which implies that the little progress that we achieved in the past was concentrated only in that part of the country.
Who cares for the poor regions and local government units? Our local officials and representatives in Congress? Not so if all they care about is to build their own little kingdoms in their respective municipality, city, province or district and have them run by the members of their family only year after year.
