| II.
STRATEGIES OF REFORMS IN THE BUREAUCRACY:
As the inefficiency of the bureaucracy is a "ready-made" scapegoat of the anti-people orientation of government, reversely it uses efficiency as reason to continuously redesign it. The government has repeatedly and alternately used reorganization, decentralization, abolition, merger, integrated area development, public estate system, and participative service delivery as strategy of reforms. Yet, every attempt, in spite its grandiose design and optimistic targets failed to accomplish improvements in the performance of public organizations. More than the limitation of its design, the actual factors of t urfing or the protection or furtherance of vested interests among politicians and bureaucrats really define the outcome of implementation. Reorganization as a Reform Strategy More often than not, programs to reorganize the bureaucracy focuses on its size whereby adopting staff reduction as permanent and main feature. It always reduces the issue to big and slow public organizations with more number of workers than needed and that this unnecessarily drains the national coffers. This raises real concern as w ave upon wave of implementation of this scheme curved nothing more than the print of the victimization of hundreds of thousands of civil servants who were dismissed without cause, to be later on replaced in greater quantity. It is incorrect to say that th e Philippine bureaucracy is big unless we are definite as to what the appropriate size should be. Comparatively however, the data of six years ago reveal that the ratio of government employees per 100 population in the Philippines rank four (4) from the l owest and twelve (12) from the highest worldwide ("A Study of Size, Growth and Rationalization of the Bureaucracy", by Joel V. Mangahas). Among ASEAN countries, it only bettered Indonesia. Considering that the government has successfully laid-off 323,441 or an average decline of 107,813 per year since 1991, while the population increased, the ratio has correspondingly worsen. It is worth to note that the ratios increase as countries are considered with more developed economies and improved services. Likewise, the argument that the test of the bigness of the bureaucracy is to compare its growth rate with that of the population growth over a certain period of time is sweeping without checking if the ratio of the number of workers vis-a-vis the population has improved. As a matter of fact, the ratio barely increased by over one percent over thirty one (31) years from 1.3 in 1951 to 2.5 in 1990 (A Study..." Joel V. Mangahas). Aptly stated by a study made by Joel V. Mangahas... "Although it is indeed true th at the government size of the Philippines in terms of public expenditure and the number of civil servants has been growing, the growth has been relatively small. To a great extent it can also be claimed that the present size of the Philippine public secto r is appropriate or ""just right" (or even small) especially when related to growing administrative and pressing socio-economic problems of the nation." Assuming without granting the bigness of the bureaucracy so that staff reduction is necessary, it is st ill a ridiculous scenario as it is a matter of fact that for every reorganization, the number of personnel increased despite massive lay-off. Far from addressing the problems of effectivity in the bureaucracy, it merely victimized hundreds of thousands of innocent civil servants who were retrenched en masse and the subsequent creation, abolition, re-creation, division, and what have you -- to simply satisfy specific wishes of those in power. In the early 70s, the Marcos dictatorship thru its Integrated Reorganization Plan, massively purged government personnel who were suspected to be unfriendly to the dictatorship but who were eventually replaced in greater quantity presumed to be more loyal to President Marcos. Together with this is the appointment of for mer and active military officers to the top positions in vital offices which spurred the militarization of the bureaucracy. The mushrooming of new agencies and offices which were created with the end purpose of facilitating and the granting of favors for the Marcos' benefactors also became a natural component of Marcos' daily pronouncements. As soon as it took over the government, the Aquino administration immediately launched her own purging campaign which resulted to the mass lay-off of 120,000 who were mainly temporary, casual, and contractual workers (IBON Databank, 1990). Although the justification made for the purge were to attain a lean government and make it efficient, it can be seen as an attempt to "de-Marcosify" the bureaucracy which was suppos ed to break the padrino or patronage system and thereby stunt the professionalization of the bureaucracy (IBON Databank, 1990). Yet it is wrong to grant the real intent of "de-Marcosification" as addressing the padrino or patronage system in the bureaucrac y because the same was excessively practiced by the Aquino government. Thus, we soon realized that one by one, the power holders during the dictatorship have repositioned themselves to key government posts while the increase in the number of government em p loyees was unprecedented. As whimsical as in the Marcos regime, Aquino abolished and created government agencies and offices depending on their need for personal aggrandizement. Those who were disfavored during the time of Marcos hurriedly joined the bure aucratic power game and lost no time in recovering and even further increasing their wealth. The Ramos government has been so far successful in the
implementation of the various schemes of staff reduction
as it has laid-off a total of 328,441 or an average of
107,813 civil servants per year between 1991-1994 "A
Comprehensive Employment Strategy Program...Public Sector
Employment", by Patricia Sto. Tomas). It has reduced
the number of government personnel to the 1980 level yet,
aside from the revelry of the Ramos administration for
having been praised by the IMF-World Bank for faithfully
implementing its conditionalities, the bureaucracy is
still suffering from an image of bloatedness as the
Filipino people remains deep in the worsening
socio-economic crisis. |
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Position Papers