HOW TO RECOGNIZE GOOD POLICY?

Since there is usually not a “right or wrong” policy, how are good policy decisions recognized? The following qualities may assist in defining “good public policy:”

• There is public support. Usually policy adopted by a majority vote of a legislative body is “good” policy. A supermajority vote makes “great” policy. The council does not make policy in a vacuum. Councils rely on ideas from many sources, including staff, citizen’s groups, advisory committees, chambers of commerce, and others. Strong council support for a policy is more likely if there is strong support in the community.
• Policy are just.  Good policy is fair and equitable; it does not impose disproportional impacts on interest groups. Policy decisions should be based upon due process that respects the constitutional rights of individuals. Policy-making is not always about what’s popular. Sometimes it means protecting the legitimate interests of minority views too.
• Sound Decision are backed with solid analisys. Good policy analysis starts with clear goals and objectives, considers a range of alternatives, expresses evaluation criteria, and assesses the impacts of alternatives with respect to these criteria. Measure the consequences of policy decisions against the community’s vision, values, and goals.
• Policy are relevant. The decision addresses a problem or issue that is generally perceived as significant to the community.
• Policy can be implemented. The decisions are feasible for local government to implement. The adopted policy has a reasonable chance of working. There are clear assignments of responsibilities for implementation.
• Result are monitored. There is always a risk that policy decisions have unintended consequences, or simply do not accomplish their goals. During the analysis phase it is useful to think about how a policy choice may fail. Good monitoring systems may provide early warning about policy failures or unintended consequences. This would enable policy-makers to alter the policy to increase effectiveness, or abandon it completely.
  

LIMITS TO POLICY MAKING

No one said that effective policy-making is easy. It is easier to second guess how something might have been done, than to determine what needs to be done. There are many challenges and hazards along the way. Public policy-making involves multiple interests, complex analysis, conflicting information, and human personalities. Listed below are some factors that make public policy a fascinating, sometimes frustrating, but absolutely essential exercise. These are listed to alert the reader about circumstances where extra care is necessary.

• Legitimate community interests have multiple and often conflicting goals. This is the essence of the policy-making challenge. For example, the business community may be motivated primarily by a profit goal in presenting its position on the comprehensive plan. Other community interests may place a higher priority on a goal of preserving as much of the natural environment as possible. These goals may conflict.
• With multiple interest groups and centers of power, there is a tendency to “take a step in the right direction” rather than commit to significant change. Some participants are frustrated because they believe that the policy-making process should produce more dramatic changes than it usually does. On the other hand, seemingly minor changes in the short-term can have enormous long-term impacts.
• Failure to have the right information can impede decision-making. Elected officials are often faced with information overload. Too much information can create uncertainty and weaken decisiveness. When this occurs, all information becomes diluted in its persuasiveness. Decision-makers may then resort to less rationally defensive but more personally satisfying methods of decision-making. Concise, well-organized data and analyses can facilitate the decision-making process.
• Some interest groups may use analysis to rationalize choices they have already made. Research can be politicized. Some people are skilled in using statistics to prove anything. Close inspection of their analysis, however, may reveal serious flaws.
• Many forces that impact local communities are beyond local control. Local governments are subject to federal and state mandates. Income levels of individual jurisdictions depend upon job creation and retention throughout the region. Traffic congestion and air pollution transcend local community borders. Local decision-makers may have limited ability to influence an important community issue.
• It is not always clear or obvious how to implement good policy, even when there is a high level of agreement about a desired direction.
• Resources to implement policy may be limited.
• Mediation may be required to resolve issues where communities are polarized.

MAKING POLICY IS NUMBER 1 JOB FOR LEGISLATOR

The key to avoiding conflicts is to recognize that the general public policy of the city is usually a matter for the legislative body to determine: the Angeles City council, though the latter also has an executive and administrative function. It is also important to recognize that it is not the role of the legislative body to administer this city. The city council sets policy, but it is either the city mayor, or city administrator that actually sees that the policies are implemented. Since the distinction between formulation and implementation is not always clear, open communications between legislators and administrators is absolutely necessary.

Focus on Strategic Policy-Making

Legislative bodies are most effective and are most successful when they focus on strategic activities that guide the future of their communities. Whether it is called goal setting, strategic planning or futures planning, the process of assessing need and establishing priorities is a necessary function of local government. It is a process that can be used to build citizen support, encourage efficiency, and improve productivity. Some observers believe that governments are driven by past decisions and reaction to operational issues and limitations. There is a legacy of prior actions that limits the community’s vision about future possibilities. Policy is about the future of your community, whether tomorrow, next week, or years from now. Policy-making is about visions, goals, choices, and possibilities. Alignment of vision and goals with the community and its local government structures builds trust and community confidence. Limited resources go further where there is alignment and trust.

Key policy-making activities include:

• CREATING A COMMUNITY VISION. This is the “big picture” for your community. A vision captures the dreams, aspirations, and hopes of your community. It is a choice of one future out of many possibilities. Important community values shape this vision. Does your community see itself as a trader in a global village? A place where diversity is cherished? A place where there is peace and harmony between the built and the natural environment? A “vision statement” could provide a benchmark against which all other local government actions are measured. If you don’t know where you are going, any path will do. Communities with vision know who they are and where they are going. Some communities also develop value statements and strategic plans to help implement their vision statements. Those without vision spend considerable energy on wrong or irrelevant issues, bouncing reactively from one topic to another. In short, they cannot see where they are going.
• Community goals & Objectives. identify components of the community vision and provide direction for implementation. A goal statement may grow out of a difficult community problem, for example, a high crime rate. The goal is to find a satisfactory resolution to this problem by implementing policies designed to reduce crime. A goal may also be born of a desire to instill some quality that is not currently part of the community, such as economic growth. Or, a goal may grow from a desire to preserve a valued characteristic or quality that already exists, such as the preservation of small town qualities while accommodating growth. Goals are qualitative statements; objectives are quantitative and measurable.
• The comprehensive plan represents the community’s policy for future growth. The plan assists in the management of the city or county by providing policies to guide decision-making. Prepare comprehensive land use plans under the state’s Growth Management Act. Comprehensive planning usually starts with an inventory and analysis of land, followed by an analysis of population and demographics, economic conditions, amenities, physical conditions, and infrastructure to determine future needs and alternatives. Based upon an agreed amount of growth, the land-use element of the plan maps locations for future development. Zoning and development regulations limit the permitted size of these developments, and govern how various uses must relate to their neighbors. Transportation and public facilities elements of the plan address service levels, locations, and financing of infrastructure needed to support community development. These plans are powerful policy tools that address major pieces of your community’s vision.
• BUDGET AND CAPITAL FACILITIES PLAN. These address the allocation of scarce financial resources to achieve the community’s vision, accomplish goals and objectives, implement the comprehensive plan, and provide services. The budget is considered one of the strongest policy-making tools. It defines the spending and service priorities for numerous other policy decisions. There is rarely enough money to do all the things that a community desires. Thus, budgets and capital facilities plans must prioritize. What gets funded? In what order? What does not get funded? How much will be spent to provide desired services? Long-term financial plan projections (5 to 6 years ahead) often help reveal some of the costs or consequences of seemingly “inexpensive” short-term policy decisions. The allocation of resources to competing needs is an important exercise of setting local policy. Deciding what not to do is also an important part of policy-making.

THE POLICY MAKING PROCESS

This research paper has been written primarily for our Professor in Certificate Course on Public Administration and Governance, DR. NOEL H. MALLARI, DPA, local officials of Angeles City. Citizens and representatives of community interest groups who participate in local issues may also find this publication useful. The purposes of this publication are to describe the local government policy-making process in Angeles City, outline effective roles for local officials, and to provide practical tips to make the local policymaking process more satisfying and productive. Local policy-making is complex, demanding the very best of local officials. It is worth the effort. The destiny of our community – the fulfillment of its dreams and aspirations – flow out of the exercise of policy-making.

The policy-making process weighs and balances public values. Often there is no “right’ choice or correct technical answer to the question at hand. That is why policy-making can be an adversarial process, characterized by the clash of competing and conflicting interests and viewpoints rather than an impartial, disinterested or “objective” search for “correct” solutions for policy problems. Because of these value clashes, the policy-making process can get emotional. However, it does not have to be rancorous. If you are a local official, you will be more effective and productive over the long-term if you respect the viewpoints of others – whether you agree with their position or not. Take time to understand your roles and responsibilities. Legislators, for example, are most effective if they focus on policy issues, not administrative matters. And chief executive officers such as mayors, county executives and city managers are most effective when they recognize and support the policy-making responsibilities of their local councilmembers and commissioners.

Introduction

Policy-making is often undervalued and misunderstood, yet it is the central role of the city, town, and county legislative bodies. The policies created by our local governments affect everyone in the community in some way. Public policy determines what services will be provided to the residents and the level of those services, what kinds of development will occur in the community, and it determines what the community’s future will be. Policies are created to guide decision making. Elected council members of cities, towns, and counties have public policy-making responsibilities. County commissioners also set policy, but have an executive role of administering policy as well.

Local policy-making is complex. It demands the very best of local officials. The public policy-making process is highly decentralized. Policy initiation, formulation, adoption, and implementation involve many interests. This process has been characterized as tending to be “fluid, incremental, confused, often disorderly and even incoherent.”

What is policy?

Formally adopted policy generally takes the form of a governing principle, plan, or course of action. In the public sector it generally evolves from a deliberative process, and is adopted by an ordinance or resolution. Legislative bodies make public policy decisions; others perform the administrative task of implementing those policies. The decisions could be the adoption of a vision for the community, a comprehensive plan, a budget, or a policy relating to a specific issue, such as allowing or prohibiting local gambling activities. Policy-making requires political wisdom, diplomacy, and prudence to bring diverse community interests together around a shared purpose. Common usage of the term “policy” also includes the wise and expedient conduct of management; thereby blurring the line between policy and administration and causing confusion in the roles of elected legislators. Public policy is a combination of basic decisions, commitments, and actions made by those who hold authority or affect government decisions. The policy-making process weighs and balances public values. Often there is no “right” choice or correct technical answer to the issue at hand. Policymaking can be an adversarial process, characterized by the clash of competing and conflicting interests and viewpoints rather than an impartial, disinterested, or “objective” search for “correct” solutions for policy issues. The larger and more diverse the constituency, the more difficult policymaking becomes, particularly when addressing regional issues. Democracy is sometimes messy. Since our government is a representative democracy, an effective policy-making process insures that all relevant viewpoints are heard, and that the rights of individuals are protected.

The Policy Making Process

There is no question that effective policy-making requires lots of process. But in the end, it requires decisiveness too. While citizens and interest groups value the opportunity to participate, they also expect efficiency in the process of analyzing issues and bringing them to resolution. “Democratic efficiency” may sound like an oxymoron, but it is a worthwhile goal. Drawn out, inconclusive processes wear out participants and frustrate everyone. Such processes may make citizens less willing to participate in future community activities.

Get issue on the agenda. A city council member has little or no power acting alone. If there is an issue or problem that should be addressed by your city, it has to be put on the public agenda. Some issues are so important that there is a consensus that something must be done. However, your issue may be in competition with others for time and attention. The support of other members of the legislative body is needed to commit time and resources to study the issue. The same is true for the chief executive. A budget is needed to carry out the studies and conduct the processes needed to bring resolution to important policy issues.

There are many catalysts for new or revised public policies. An economic calamity, such as the closing of a mill in the community, might generate a need for a new economic development policy. Technological innovations, such as networked computers and the Internet, are raising a myriad of technology policy issues for local governments today. Ecological shifts brought about by dramatic growth and development threatens Salmon species, requiring governments to respond. On some issues the community may have no choice but to act because of federal or state requirements like the Endangered Species Act and the Growth Management Act. On other issues, there may be local discretion to address them or not. These policy issues will need the consent and support of other elected officials to place them on the local agenda.

The policy-maker must be prepared to explain why action is necessary and why this issue is more important than other issues that compete for time, attention, and resources. What is the problem that needs to be solved? What are the implications of not acting? What is at stake? Why is government involvement or action required? Can someone else, such as a non-profit entity, address this problem?

Document Existing Condition. Issues become part of the public agenda when there is a shared perception that a problem must be solved, an issue resolved, or an opportunity realized. Explain the problem and recognize that everyone does not share the same definition of problem.

Existing conditions provide a reference point against which possible actions are compared. The task of documenting existing conditions will probably be assigned to staff. Council members must recognize that resources need to be budgeted for these staff activities.

Define Goals and Objectives. Policy action requires public support, or at a minimum, a working majority of the legislative body. The development of goals is an important part of the search for agreement. Conceptually, the idea is to move from the more general to the specific: first reaching agreement on broad principles before getting to specific means.

Goals are qualitative in nature, for example:

• Create a community where people can live, work, and play in an environment that is safe, vibrant, and aesthetically pleasing.
• Preserve greenbelts and natural areas.
• Provide for the efficient and safe movement of people and goods.

Objectives are quantitative, providing yardsticks to measure goal achievement. Some examples are:

• Create 1,500 new affordable housing units by the year 2005.
• Acquire outright or purchase the development rights to preserve 1,000 acres of greenbelts by the year 2005.

Goal development can be a time-consuming process that requires the full attention of the governing board. All members should participate. There will need to be give and take among the participants. Goals should reflect what the governing board wants to accomplish. Avoid getting too detailed. Let staff figure out how to achieve goals. Organizations cannot do everything at once. Setting goals helps prioritize where time, energy, and resources go.

Generates Alternatives. What options are there for attaining the policy-making body’s goals? It is important to consider a range of reasonable alternatives. If alternatives favored by an influential interest group are excluded, it will be very difficult to reach a decision that has strong support.

• Do not prematurely lock into one choice. That will impede your ability to build a consensus and to bring other interests over to your position.
• Be respectful of costs to government. All levels of government are expected to do more with less. This is especially true for local government. Are there low or no cost solutions? Think creatively.
• Be mindful of ongoing costs. These have to be budgeted. For example, if the city spends money to purchase land and develop a park, it also needs to pay for ongoing maintenance.
• Think of what it will take to implement your solution, including administrative costs. Policy that cannot be implemented is ineffective. The more complex a solution, the more likely it is to meet with resistance.

Identify Key interest Groups. This is an important step in defining criteria for evaluating alternatives. Who else cares about this issue? How will they be impacted? Will they be positively or negatively affected by various solutions? Which interest groups are logical allies? Who is likely to oppose the action(s)?

Evaluate Alternatives. This task will likely fall mainly to staff, and will often be addressed through formal process requirements such as the preparation of environmental impact statements. Some key considerations are:

• Address the costs and consequences of doing nothing.
• Recognize that there are tradeoffs and costs to others. Anticipate criteria that are important to others. You lose credibility if they are ignored. The same weight does not have to be placed on other interests’ criteria, but the real impacts cannot be ignored. In many cases, there are legal requirements to address the impacts.
• Test the sensitivity of assumptions. How would the findings and conclusions change if the assumptions were modified?

Decide. Even if everything is done right, some decisions are hard because they address a difficult issue. A few points they consider are:

• Recognize constraints, such as budgets, laws, and authority. Balance dreams with the reality of what needs to be changed. Small changes can have major impacts through time.
• Recognize that there are often more than two positions on an issue. This makes it difficult
• to get a majority, much less a consensus.
• Think about how alternatives might be combined into “win-win” solutions that address needs of multiple parties.
• Treat all parties with respect.
  

Implement and Monitor. Even if you have done a great job in involving all the parties,

analyzing alternatives, and achieving consensus, the process is not complete. Too many well-intentioned plans sit on a shelf and collect dust. Make sure that implementation responsibilities are clearly assigned.

Policies often have unintended consequences. Monitor the implementation of policies and revise them as necessary. It is better to discover (sooner than later) that the assumptions were not correct so that early corrective action can be taken. Unintended consequences can create bigger problems down the road. Consider sunset ordinances that require formal policy review after a set time period, especially if the council embarks on an untried innovative policy direction.

just my own point of view

- roy dante ogurida

PROGRAM EVALUATION AND POLICY ANALYSIS

    Every year, about $200 million is allocated for program evaluation or policy analysis of about $200 billion worth of social programs in the U.S.  This lecture provides the basics needed to understand and hopefully prepare such research proposals.  Program evaluation is defined as the use of research to measure the effects of a program in terms of its goals, outcomes, or criteria. Policy analysis is defined as the use of any evaluative research to improve or legitimate the practical implications of a policy-oriented program. Program evaluation is done when the policy is fixed or unchangeable. Policy analysis is done when there’s still a chance that the policy can be revised. A number of other terms are probably deserving of definition:

·         action research — just another name for program evaluation of a highly practical nature

·         applied research — a broad term meaning something practical is linked to something theoretical

·         continuous monitoring or audit — determining accountability in activities related to inputs

·         cost-benefit analysis — determining accountability in outputs related to inputs

·         evaluability assessment — determining if a program or policy is capable of being researched

·         feasibility assessment — determining if a program or policy can be formulated or implemented

·         impact analysis or evaluation — finding statistically significant relationships using a systems model

·         needs assessment — finding service delivery gaps or unmet needs to re-establish priorities

·         operations research — another name for program evaluation using a systems model

·         organizational development — research carried out to create change agents in the organization

·         process evaluation — finding statistically significant relationships between activities and inputs

·         quality assurance — ensuring standards for data collection appropriate for program objectives

·         quality circles — creating employee teams that conduct research on organizational quality problems

·         quality control — ensuring data utilized for decision making is appropriate

·         total quality management — evaluation of core outputs from a consumer-driven point of view

    Patton (1990) and many other good books, websites, and seminars on evaluation or grant and proposal writing will contain additional definitions. Don’t take any of my definitions (above) as gospel since there’s not much agreement among professionals on terminology. The basic principles and practices of evaluation are well-established, however. 

    In criminal justice, unless you’re willing to shop for sponsors in the private sector among charitable foundations, the source of most research funding is the National Institute of Justice. NIJ is the research branch of the U.S. Department of Justice. It is totally unlike the old LEAA/LEEP (now NCJRS) in that discretionary block grants (enabling topics of your own choosing) are a thing of the past. Since 1984 and every year since, NIJ comes out with their Research Plan for the upcoming year. It usually sets 7-8 areas they want evaluative research done in. These priorities represent a compromise between the personal preferences of the Attorney General and what NIJ senior staffers believe to be the most critical areas. There’s almost always something available for research with drugs, domestic violence, victims, community crime prevention, sentencing, and in recent years, technology. Not much NIJ-sponsored research supports criminological research, and what little there is is eaten up by think tanks or well-organized academic research teams. NIJ seems to favor proposals that involve randomized experimental designs and a clear indication that both academics and practitioners will be working closely together. Juvenile grants are handled by another agency, OJJDP (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention), and most of the priorities there tend to heavily involve collaboration with lawyers or law-related education. 

SYSTEMS MODELS

    To understand evaluative research, one must understand the systems model approach. Other words for this approach are theory-driven or criterion-driven. The basic idea is that any program, organization, or functional unit of society can be represented as an interrelated series of parts that work together in cybernetic or organic fashion. In fact, computer language is often used to describe the things an evaluator looks for, such as:

·         Inputs — any rules, regulations, directives, manuals, or operating procedures, including costs, budgets, equipment purchases, number of authorized and allocated personnel

·         Activities — anything that is done with the inputs (resources) such as number of cases processed, kinds of services provided, staffing patterns, use of human and capital resources 

·         Events — things that happen shortly before, after, or during the evaluation period such as Supreme Court decisions, changes in legislation, economic/political changes, natural disasters, etc.

·         Results — specific consequences of activities or products produced, such as number of cases closed or cleared, productive work completed, or completed services provided

·         Outcomes — general consequences or accomplishments in terms of goals related to social betterment such as crime rate declines, fear of crime reductions, deterrence, rehabilitation, etc.

·         Feedback — any recycling or loop of information back into operations or inputs, such as consumer satisfaction surveys, expansion or restriction due to demand, profitability, etc.     

    In addition, evaluation research requires a fairly good grasp of administrative or management models, particularly those that have to do with planning, organizing, and control functions. At a minimum, the researcher should be familiar with the following generic model of all organizations:

MISSION
|
GOALS
|
OBJECTIVES
|
BEHAVIOR

    The mission is, of course, easily obtainable in the form of a mission statement or some declaration of strategic purpose. It’s the one thing that the organization holds up to the outside world, or external environment, as it’s connection to goals of social betterment. Goals are those general purposes of the functional divisions of the organization. For example, to improve traffic flow, to deter crime, to solve cases, and to return stolen property are broadly-stated goals. They’re the things that clientele or consumers of the agency relate to. Objectives are specific, measurable outcomes related to goals, such as a 30% improvement in traffic flow, a 25% reduction in crime, or $500,000 in returned property. They are also usually time-specific, and are what employees most relate to. Behavior is the ordinary productivity of employees. Accountability of behavior to objectives is the personnel function, and of behavior to goals or mission is oversight. Feedback loops normally exist between behavior and goals in most communication channels, however. Evaluators usually identify forces in the external environment (events), like demography, technology, economics, and politics, as well as who the clientele are of the organization (it’s not the same as consumers), as well as the degree to which the organization is extracting power resources from its community vis-a-vis some competitive organization.

THE STEPS OF PROGRAM EVALUATION

    Program evaluation uses less of what I’ve mentioned above than policy analysis. Like grants, program evaluations are often expected to involve some original research design, and sometimes what is called a triangulated strategy, which means 2-3 research designs in one (for example, a quantitative study, some qualitative interviews, and a secondary analysis of data collected from a previous program evaluation). The basis steps are the same as the scientific inference process: (1) hypothesize; (2) sample, (3) design, and (4) interpret. 

    The hypothesis step is crucial. The evaluator must dream up hypotheses that not only make sense for the kind of practical, agency-level data to be collected, but ones that are theoretically significant or related to issues in the field as evidenced from a review of the extant literature. Evaluators draw upon a wide range of disciplines, from anthropology to zoology. In Justice Studies, it’s common to draw hypotheses having to do with offenses from the field of criminal justice and hypotheses having to do with offenders from the field of criminology. 

    Sampling is often not random since few organizations are willing to undergo experiments or deny treatments to some of their customers for the sake of research. Quasi-experiments or time-series may be the best that the evaluator can do. Sometimes, ANCOVA, or post-hoc statistical controls can be used as substitutes for experiments. 

    The design step usually involves replication of instruments, indexes, or scales used by previous researchers in studies of similar organizations. Occasionally, the evaluator will develop, pretest, and validate their own scale. 

    Interpretation results in the production of at least three documents: a lengthy evaluation report geared for a professional audience which contains the statistical methodology; a shorter report geared for laypeople which simplifies or summarizes the study; and an executive summary which is usually two or three pages in length and can also serve as a press release. In addition, evaluators often do interim and progress reports.

THE STEPS OF POLICY ANALYSIS

    Policy analysis generally takes more time than program evaluation. Whereas all the above can be accomplished by a seasoned evaluator in six months or less, policy analysis may take a year or more. It may even take that long just to find out exactly when, how, and where the policy is articulated. A key operating assumption among policy analysts (at the beginning of their work) is that policy is never directly measurable. If it were a simple matter of looking up the statutory authority for the agency, there would be no reason for policy analysis, although it’s common for policy analysts to at least pay homage to “policies enacted in law.”  Some policy changes are incremental but others are non-incremental (called paradigm shifts).  It’s also customary for policy analysis to have a theory of some kind, whether using any pre-existing theory like the models of public choice, welfare economics, corporatism, pluralism, neo-institutionalism, or statism (Howlett & Ramesh 2003), coming up with one’s own theory; e.g., through inductive versus deductive theory construction, and/or a taxonomy of typical policy styles with respect to specific areas of government activity by individual, group, and institutional level of analysis.  

    Policy analysis is most useful when you’ve got a large, troubled organization manifesting a Roshomon Effect (employees disagree or don’t know the policies) and decoupled subenvironments (parts of the organization going off some direction on their own). There’s also usually some public concern about the morality or “goodness” of the organization, and policy analysis is not concerned with disinterested description, but with recommending something on the basis of moral argument. It’s unfortunate that policy studies and policy analysis are typically limited to graduate school education. Learning the art and craft of policy analysis can be of enormous benefit to undergraduates, and the sooner they learn it the better since far too many people wait until graduate school. The basic steps of systematic policy analysis are as follows:

·         Problem Identification — finding the public interests and issues involved

·         Criteria Selection — determining what criteria to evaluate the organization on

·         System Assessment — analysis of boundaries, feedback, and power dynamics

·         Strategies and Tactics — examining decision-making and delivery mechanisms

·         Feasibility Assessment — formulation and implementation analysis     

    A problem is defined as some predicted condition that will be unsatisfactory without intervention. They can stem from problems that everyone is already aware of, but in most cases, are derived the policy analyst’s perception of what’s appropriate for the organization. This is sometimes called a constrained maximization approach because it involves reflection on the broader societal purpose (public interest) of the organization as well as what the top decision-makers are cognizant of. The analyst often derives a perception of the public interest from a literature review, or engages in what is called agenda building, which is similar to how sociologists approach a social problem or issue by analyzing the criminalization or medicalization of something. Intended and unintended functions of the organization as well as formal and informal agendas are looked at.

    The selection of criteria depends on the public interests being served. It’s time for some overdue examples, so let’s take a typical code of ethics for an organization. Almost all of the verbiage in these can be reduced to the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The analyst would therefore try to construct formulas to measure liberty, equality, and fraternity in terms of the inputs, activities, and outcomes we became familiar with in our earlier discussion of program evaluation. I’m not kidding; actual mathematical formulas are constructed to measure abstract concepts. Much of the science behind it comes from the way economists measure opportunity cost. It makes more than a few people quantiphobic, so I’ll explain a select few of the simplest ones:

    A system assessment in policy analysis usually involves creating a flowchart showing how outcomes and feedback are produced by the organization, and then showing this flowchart to employees in the agency to see if they agree or disagree with the depicted process. At this time, the analyst is concerned with the problem-outcome connections, and relevant discrepancies or assertions by employees in this review are converted into testable hypotheses that involve estimates of Type I or Type II error. This refers to whether or not there is an informal employee “culture” that accepts or rejects the policies inferred by the analyst. One of the assumptions of policy analysis is that practices do not make policy, but sometimes it seems like they do, so the analyst has to look into the goodness of fit, if you will, with the intentions of those practices and if the discrepant employees are what are called knowledgeables, or those people who are capable of thinking one step up to the abstract principles or interests behind policy. It may well be that the organization is fulfilling broader interests like health, well-being, or quality of life.

    Systems, of course, also intimately involve boundary mechanisms, both externally to the environment and internally. It’s the analyst’s job to determine if these boundaries are open or closed, as this matters for the adaptive capacity of the organization and its readiness to accept change. The general rule is that permeability is healthy. Open organizations are more adaptive and changeable. Feedback loops are also open or closed, depending on the amount and use of information from outside consumers or clientele or internally from employees only. Many criminal justice agencies have criminal consumers, so it’s customary to see terms like semi-permeable or semi-closed.  Another term which is somewhat murky is the concept of “stakeholder.”  There are many types of stakeholders and many different ways to do stakeholder analysis (Friedman & Miles 2006), but generally, any person or organization who is (or can be) positively or negatively impacted by a project is a stakeholder.

    Strategies and tactics involve measuring the delivery mechanisms of the organization. In this regard, the analyst is concerned with informal and formal power structures. The powerless informal people will have their satisficing (settling for less) behavior measured. The powerful decision makers will have the degree to which they say (and they always do) they can improve with more time, money, and people measured. It’s the job of the analyst to determine what are called the optimization levels for resource allocation.  Many good books have been written on Pareto optima, Markov chains, queuing theory, PERT, and cost-benefit analysis, and I won’t try to explain them here, but they all essentially involve running a series of simultaneous equations (or difference equations) through a computer in order to determine probabilistic permutations or combinations that represent various break-even points.    

    Feasibility assessment involves timeline and matrix analysis. A timeline is a graphical way of depicting events, and a formulation and implementation matrix depict the political action plans, both historically and in terms of the analyst’s recommendations. A legend for the symbols goes like this: O = origin of some policy initiative; I = implementation of some action plan; P = program operation started; E = evaluation of program; T = termination of program. 

Best Practices for Curbing Corruption in Asia

Curbing Corruption in Asia is a turning point in the debate over corruption. Professor Jon S.T. Quah combines broad comparative concepts with a detailed account of corruption and reforms in six countries to spell out critical policy choices Asian societies face. His analysis of three patterns of corruption control is a welcome departure from the many reform proposals that emphasize the same factors everywhere, and thus do not really fit anywhere. Not only can corruption be controlled; Professor Jon S.T. Quah shows how several Asian societies have done it. At the same time, he identifies critical points at which controls can fail. Anyone concerned with corruption and development in Asia should give the lessons in his article a very careful thought.

The government is not the sole responsible for curbing corruption, citizen of a particular country also have duties to watch over their leaders. Reading this column entitled Best Practices for Curbing Corruption in Asia” has been an eye opener in many ways. Different countries are faced with different scenario of corruption and each needs a special attention.

The Philippines for example, even if a separate agency will be put up for monitoring corruption what’s the assurance that this agencies will really do its function. It happened before, the Philippine Government establish the PCGG but lately they‘re   found out that the most of its members were corrupt, this only mean that in order for a government to solve corruption the root of the problem should be looked up.

Also according to the column a certain government should punish those guilty of corruption, this is something true, unfortunately here in the Philippines by the times Former President Estrada was pronounced guilty of the crime Plunder he was sent to prison but several years later the government just to pleas all the followers/supporters of the former President decided to free Erap of his crimes.

The primary reason why there is a big difficulty for countries to curb corruption is because there is no unity to achieves maximum tolerance for corruption. A lot of civilians and government employees sees corruption as a daily occurring thing that is not in any way wrong.

WRITING SYNOPSIS FOR A Ph.D. RESEARCH PROJECT

Whereas it is essential to encourage and expand Ph.D. research to make it a more active part of the academic life of the University of the Punjab, it is also important to ensure that a reasonable standard of research is maintained. The University regulates through its bodies like the Board of Studies and Advanced Studies and Research Board that the Ph.D. research programs are properly planned and executed to maintain the standards..

A research proposal for Ph.D. registration, whether the area of study belongs to natural sciences, social sciences, languages, medicine or engineering, should include certain basic components, in which a number of questions need to be addressed. Why research on the proposed topic should be undertaken and what gains are likely to be achieved? What has been done previously in this or related areas? What are the objectives of this study and how these will be achieved? Are the facilities required for doing the proposed research available? An extensive initial exercise should help in designing a sound research project, which is likely to make a significant contribution in successful completion of Ph.D. research.

Components of a Synopsis

The following components should be provided in a synopsis of a Ph.D. research project. The details may, however, vary according to the field of study. Any alteration to the following format may be made in a specific discipline only with good justification.

1.             Title Page

A title page of the synopsis should include title of the research project, name of the student (with qualifications), name of the supervisor(s), place of work and date (month and year) of submission.

2.             Topic     

The topic for research should be selected carefully. It should be specific and worded to show the nature of work involved as far as possible.

3.             Introduction

It should provide a brief description to introduce the area of the proposed research work.

4.             Review of Literature           

A review of the relevant literature showing the work done previously in the area of proposed research is essential to plan further research effectively. The information given in the review should be supported by references.

5.                     Justification and Likely Benefits

It is important to provide justification for undertaking the proposed research, perhaps in the light of previous work done. It should be possible in most cases to anticipate the specific and general benefits likely to be achieved as a result of completion of the proposed research.

6.             Objectives

Broad objectives as visualized to be achieved should be clearly outlined and these should be itemized. These objectives will indicate the major aspects of the study to be undertaken.

7.             Plan of Work and Methodology

A plan of work describing the various aspects of the study in a logical sequence along with the methodologies to be employed, are the most important aspects of any research plan. Sufficient details to demonstrate that the researcher  has a fairly good idea about the nature of work likely to be involved should be provided. In the case of experimental sciences, e.g., which equipments and experimental procedures will be used to obtain the results; in the case of social sciences what resource materials will be used; whether the required information will be obtained from primary or secondary sources, etc. A time schedule for the various aspects of the proposed research may be provided wherever possible.

8.             Place of Work and Facilities Available

In order to complete the proposed research some specialized facilities may be required. For example in case of experimental sciences different equipments may be involved or in the case of, may be, a study on a scholar, the relevant literature may be available in a foreign country. Therefore it is important to identify the place where the research work will be undertaken and whether the resources and facilities required for doing the research are available.

9.             References and Bibliography

Synopsis should contain at the end a list of references, and a bibliography if required. These should be written on a standard pattern.

It will be difficult to define an overall length for a synopsis for Ph.D. research in such varied fields of study. Whereas it should be concise as far as possible and avoid repetitions, it should also provide sufficient details on the various aspects mentioned above to show that the research involved has been well understood and planned, and it is of an acceptable academic merit. The total length of a synopsis may run from 1,500 to a few thousand words.

HEALTH PROBLEM IN THE PHILIPPINES

The struggle against disease has progressed considerably over the years. Health conditions in the Philippines in 1990 approximated to those in other Southeast Asian countries but lagged behind those in the West. Life expectancy, for instance, increased from 51.2 years in 1960 to 69 years for women and 63 years for men in 1990. Infant mortality was 101 per 1,000 in 1950 and had dropped to 51.6 per 1,000 in 1989. In 1923 approximately 76 percent of deaths were caused by communicable diseases. By 1980 deaths from communicable diseases had declined to about 26 percent.

In 1989 the ratio of physicians and hospitals to the total population was similar to that in a number of other Southeast Asian countries, but considerably below that in Europe and North America. Most health care personnel and facilities were concentrated in urban areas. There was substantial migration of physicians and nurses to the United States in the 1970s and 1980s, but there are no reliable figures to indicate what effect this had on the Philippines. Hospital equipment often did not function because there were insufficient technicians capable of maintaining it, but the 1990 report of the Department of Health said that centers for the repair and maintenance of hospital equipment expected to alleviate this problem.

A little more than one-half of the infants and children received a complete series of immunization shots, a major step in preventive medicine, but obviously far short of a desirable goal. The problem was especially difficult in rural areas. The Department of Health had made efforts to provide every barangay with at least minimum health care, but doing so was both difficult and expensive, and the more remote areas inevitably received less attention.

Although very few Filipinos have been infected with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), concern about the disease has caused authorities to give it considerable attention. By April 1979, only three people had died from AIDS, two of whom were overseas Filipinos visiting the homeland and one an American civilian who had contracted the disease outside the Philippines. In 1985 the Department of Health and the United States Naval Medical Research unit tested more than 17,000 people, including some 14,000 hospitality girls in Olangapo and a number of other Filipino cities. They identified twenty-one women as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) carriers. The American sponsorship of the study was seized upon as argument for ending the Military Bases Agreement with the United States. A June 1990 Philippine government study reported that at that time AIDS was growing at the rate of four cases a month and that twenty people had died from the disease. The study indicated that most AIDS cases in the Philippines were transmitted by heterosexual activity. An April 30, 1991, Department of Health report indicated that 240 Filipinos were infected with AIDS.

Like many other countries, the Philippines has a problem with illicit drugs. Official Philippine government statistics for 1989 indicate only 1,733 addicts, but the assumption was that the real number was from ten to a hundred times as great. The government has instituted both education and treatment programs, but it was uncertain how effective these programs would be. There also was a problem with inadequatedly tested legal drugs. In 1983, more than 265 pharmaceutical products were sold in the Philippines that were banned in many other countries. The Department of Health succeeded in eliminating 128 of them by 1988. Attempts to eliminate others have been blocked by the courts, which ruled that the department had acted without due process.

Malnutrition has been a perennial concern of the Philippine government and health care professionals. In 1987 the Department of Health reported that 2.8 percent of preschoolers were suffering from third-degree malnutrition and 17.6 percent from second-degree malnutrition. To alleviate this problem, the government targeted food assistance for nearly 500,000 preschoolers and lactating mothers.

Nutrition has shown some improvement. In 1955 government statistics estimated the daily per capita available food supply at only 80 percent of sufficiency. In 1986 it had improved to 101.8 percent. In the same period, the consumption of milk nearly tripled and the consumption of fats and oils more than doubled.

The Philippines has a dual health care system consisting of modern (Western) and traditional medicine. The modern system is based on the germ theory of disease and has scientifically trained practitioners. The traditional approach assumes that illness is caused by a breach of taboos set by supernatural forces. It is not unusual for an individual to alternate between the two forms of medicine. If the benefits of modern medicine are immediately obvious–eyeglasses, for instance–then there is little argument. If there is no immediate cure, the impulse to turn to the traditional healer is often strong.

One type of traditional healer that attracted the attention of foreigners as well as Filipinos was the so-called psychic surgeon, who professed to be able to operate without using a scalpel or drawing blood. Some practitioners attracted a considerable clientele and established lucrative practices. Travel agents in the United States credited these “surgeons” with generating travel to the Philippines.

Although medical treatment had improved and services had expanded, pervasive poverty and lack of access to family planning detracted from the general health of the Philippine people. In 1990 approximately 50 percent of the population was listed below the poverty line (down from 59 percent in 1985). A high rate of childbirth tended both to deplete family resources and to be injurious to the health of the mother. The main general helath hazards were pulmonary, cardivascular, and gastrointestinal disorders.

On my own point of view I recommend to strengthened the social security system including Medicare (PhilHealth) program with wide coverage of the regularly employed urban workers. It offered a partial shield against disaster, but was limited both by the generally low level of incomes, which reduced benefits, and by the exclusion of most workers in agriculture. In my research on April 1989, out of more than 22 million employed individuals, a little more than 10.5 million were covered by social security. In health care and social security, as with other services, the Philippines entered the 1990s as a modernizing society struggling with limited success against heavy odds to apply scarce financial resources to provide its people with a better life.

-roy dante ogurida

GOVERNMENT ON PUMP PRIMING THE ECONOMY

Government should pump-prime the economy by spending a lot on massive infrastructure, education, health and other important equally important matters so that there will be no recession.

You’ve probably heard the expression “pump priming the economy.” It was used by the Ramos and Estrada administrations before, and is now apparently being used by the current government, in an effort to stimulate the economy into higher growth.

The metaphor comes from the way a dried-up water pump can be made to bring forth water again by pouring water into (”priming”) the pump and filling the pipe connecting it to the groundwater below, thereby helping draw out the water continuously thereafter.

This is for the reason that the private sector tends not to spend and hold on to their cash.

That is why if there will be no money that would be in circulation just because the private sector would go slow on their spending, then government should get in and spend a lot so there will be no recession.

Lord John Maynard Keynes’ legacy to economic knowledge was the prescription that government can spend its way out of an economic recession. Like pouring water into a dry pump, government can pour money into the economy to draw out the money lying in private hands therein. This happens through the way government spending undergoes a process that multiplies the original spending–and the economic activity it directly provokes–several times over.

As I sum it up, this multiplier process happens because one person’s spending is another one’s income. Subject to their saving behavior, this income then funds new spending that again becomes income for others, and so on, going round and round and generating more production and income along the way. The more people spend out of each round of income, and the less they spend on imported goods, the greater the multiplier effect will be.

COMBATING CORRUPTION IN THE PHILIPPINES

To fight corruption in the Philippines is to adopted a tough anti-corruption policy targeted at ensuring sustainable and equitable development. The objective is to combat corruption through its general work on market liberalization and public sector reform; by providing explicit support for selective anti-corruption initiatives; and by ensuring that its own staff and projects adhere to the highest levels of integrity.

The objective of these was to raise awareness of the seriousness of the corruption problem and to identify effective anti-corruption strategies.

·       The pernicious effects of corruption: corruption erodes confidence in political institutions and endangers public sector reforms; exacts a disproportionate cost on the poor who may be deprived of basic public services; distorts the allocation of resources and undermines competition in the market place. Empirical evidence demonstrates that corruption has a devastating effect on investment, growth, and development.

·         Agreed on the necessity to fight all types of corruption on all levels and recognized progress made in some countries to develop effective anti-corruption programmes.

·         Recognized the need to address the international dimension of corruption, organised crime and money laundering.

·         Identified priority measures to fight corruption including:

• strengthening state institutions by improving enforcement and monitoring;
• providing for transparency and accountability;
• enabling independent investigative and judiciary bodies;
• building public/private partnerships and networks to monitor anti-corruption activities and underpin reform efforts;
• establishing participatory and proactive strategies to enhance anti-corruption efforts of all parties concerned;
• empowering civil society and media to galvanize community action, generate political commitment and create a pattern of honesty in business transactions;
• improving basic education and literacy levels, and educating society to the costs of corruption.

·         Agreed that anti-corruption programmes must be supported by political will and that building private/public sector coalitions is critical to developing and sustaining reform measures.

·         The need for changing the business environment because corruption interferes with competition on the basis of price, quality, and service and erodes the integrity of managers and employees.

·         Stressed the importance of promoting ethical standards in business and good corporate governance.

·         Recognized the value of international instruments to encourage and strengthen anti-corruption programmes at national and regional levels and to provide a benchmark of best practices.

·         Encouraged donor organizations to develop synergies in programme design and implementation on the basis of long-term partnership.

Implementation strategies: Public Sector

We need to:

·         develop comprehensive national strategies for combating corruption;

·         strengthen law enforcement mechanisms, including the role of the judiciary and provide witness protection programmes;

·         increase transparency through the establishment of competitive public procurement procedures and encourage the adoption of international rules in this area;

·         improve conditions for international investment through simplification of government procedures,

·         improve transparency and accountability in budget preparation, execution, and oversight of expenditure,

·         develop codes of ethics in public administration to be enforced by strong sanctions;

·         strengthen procedures for an effective and merit-based civil service, particularly recruitment, promotion and pay,

·         adopt “Freedom of Information” laws and provide access to public information,

·         strengthen parliamentary oversight, independent audit and investigative bodies to be backed by sufficient human and financial resources.

Implementation Strategies: Private Sector

We need for:

·         establishing public-private partnerships to develop anti-corruption strategies, goals and processes;

·         promoting good corporate governance on the basis of international standards and principles;

·         strong commitment by top management of companies to implement anti-corruption strategies;

·         developing and implementing codes of ethical conduct and ensuring their effectiveness through internal control mechanisms, training of personnel and sanctions;

·         accounting and auditing rules and standards to ensure transparency in business transactions;

·         building coalitions for business integrity, including business ethics centers.

Implementation Strategies: Media and Civil Society

The urgency of:

• mobilizing civil society (media, NGOs, business, labor, and professional associations) to monitor good governance;
• creating an anti-corruption network of NGOs to share information on regional/country anti-corruption initiatives;
• conducting surveys of businesses, consumers and public opinion to provide feedback for delivery of public services and fostering competition;
• implementing education programmes aimed at fostering an anti-corruption culture in society;
• enabling the media to effectively exercise public scrutiny;
• improving ethical and professional standards of journalists and promoting training in investigative journalism.

Follow-Up

·         exchange information and experience on national, regional and international programmes to measure progress and encourage further actions;

·         analyze issues relating to anti-corruption activities and develop recommendations;

·         monitor the progress achieved in the implementation of these recommendations.

These are my recommendations if the body satisfy we will widely disseminated to all parties concerned with the fight against corruption.

- roy dante ogurida

The Crisis of Public Education in the Philippines

According to the human capital theory, the economic development of a nation is a function of the quality of its education. In other words: the more and better educated a people, the greater the chances of economic development.

The modern world in which we live is often termed a “knowledge society”; education and information have become production factors potentially more valuable than labor and capital. Thus, in a globalized setting, investment in human capital has become a condition for international competitiveness.

In the Philippines, I often hear harsh criticism against the politics of globalization. At the same time, regarding the labor markets, I can hardly think of another nation that is so much a part of a globalized economy than the Philippines with nearly ten per cent of the overall population working beyond the shores of the native land.

Brain drain. Apart from the much debated political, social and psychological aspects, this ongoing mass emigration constitutes an unparalleled brain drain with serious economic implications.

Arguably, the phenomenon also has an educational dimension, as the Philippine society is footing the bill for the education of millions of people, who then spend the better part of their productive years abroad. In effect, the poor Philippine educational system is indirectly subsidizing the affluent economies hosting the OFWs.

With 95 per cent of all elementary students attending public schools, the educational crisis in the Philippines is basically a crisis of public education. The wealthy can easily send their offspring to private schools, many of which offer first-class education to the privileged class of pupils.

Social divide. Still, the distinct social cleavage regarding educational opportunities remains problematic for more than one reason. Historically, in most modern societies, education has had an equalizing effect. In Germany, for instance, the educational system has helped overcome the gender gap, and later also the social divide. Today, the major challenge confronting the educational system in the country, in most cases Muslim, immigrants. Importantly, this leveling out in the context of schooling has not occurred in this part of the world. On the contrary, as one Filipino columnist wrote, “Education has become part of the institutional mechanism that divides the poor and the rich.”

Let me add an ideological note to the educational debate: Liberals are often accused of standing in the way of reforms that help overcome social inequalities. While, indeed, liberals value personal freedom higher than social equality, they actively promote equality of opportunities in two distinct policy areas: education and basic heath care.

For this reason, educational reform tends to have a high ranking on the agenda of most liberal political parties in many parts of the world.

Although I live to this country for over 30 years now, I am still astonished again and again by the frankness and directness with which people here address problems in public debates. “The quality of Philippine education has been declining continuously for roughly 25 years,” said the Undersecretary — and no one in the audience disagreed. This, I may add, is a devastating report card for the politicians who governed this nation in the said period. From a liberal and democratic angle, it is particularly depressing as this has been the period that coincides with democratic rule that was so triumphantly and impressively reinstalled after the dark years of dictatorship in 1986! Describing the quality of Philippine school education today, the senior DepEd official stated the following: “Our schools are failing to teach the competence the average citizen needs to become responsible, productive and self-fulfilling. We are graduating people who are learning less and less.”

Let me highlight two figures: Reportedly, at last count more than 17 million students are enrolled in this country’s public schools.

At an annual population growth rate of 2.3 per cent, some 1.7 million babies are born every year. In a short time, these individuals will claim their share of the limited educational provisions.

“We can’t build classrooms fast enough to accommodate” statement from a DepEd Undersecretary, who also recalled the much lamented lack of teachers, furniture and teaching materials.

In short, there are too little resources for too many students.

Two alternatives. In this situation, logically, there exist only two strategic alternatives: either, one increases the resources, which is easier said than done considering the dramatic state of public finances, or one reduces the number of students.

This second alternative presupposes a systematic population policy, aimed at reducing the number of births considerably.

But this, too, is easier said than done, considering the politics in this country — or to quote Congressman Reyes: “Given the very aggressive and active intervention of the Church addressing the population problem is very hard to tackle.”

-roy dante ogurida

Poverty in the Philippines

In studying economic development, I have always been aware of the gap that exists between theory and practice. Way back in my grad student days, Big Theory was the rule, Indeed, I suppose I was somewhat unusual in that I made the transition from the theoretical disciplines of political science and economics to the practical level of hands-on development work.

I have recently revisited the development literature, both for personal reasons and out of professional necessity in my current consulting work at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). And I must say that I am impressed by the breadth and logic of current development philosophies.

Let’s take a quick look at some widely accepted principles in the mainstream development community, at the three descending levels of the world as a whole, Asia as a region, and the Philippines specifically. All three share in common placing poverty reduction at the core of development work.

Global Level: In September, 2000 the UN General Assembly ended the Millennium Summit by adopting a set of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In addition to the first MDG of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, the others include achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving women’s reproductive health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, ensuring environment sustainability, and “developing a global partnership for development.”

With specific reference to poverty, the MDGs specify three targets:

• Target 1: Halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty between 1990-2115
• Target 2: Halve the proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption and halve the proportion of underweight children (under five years)
• Target 3: Halve the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water or those who cannot afford it by 2115.

Asian Level: ADB’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, as embedded in its Long-Term Strategic Framework, is equally admirable. ADB identifies three fundamental pillars of poverty reduction:

• Social Development (human capital development, population policy, social capital development, gender equality, social protection);
• Good Governance (government accountability, public participation, predictable legal framework, transparency, anticorruption initiatives); and
• Pro-poor Growth (labor-intensive employment and income creation, public/private sector provision of basic services, poor area public investment. regional and subregional cooperation, environmental sustainability)

Philippines Level: The Arroyo administration’s official development agenda focuses specifically on issues of poverty and unemployment. The key document here is the Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP), 2001-2004, which stresses poverty reduction through equitable growth, rural development, and social sector investment. The four primary strategies are:

• Macroeconomic stability and equitable growth, using sound fiscal and monetary policies to keep inflation low and avoid surges in unemployment; modernize all sectors through HR development and technology;
• Comprehensive HR development, basic education, health, shelter, water, electricity; safety nets for most vulnerable sectors; encouraging poor to participate in governance;
• Modernization of agricultural sector with social equity; agrarian reform, improving rural infrastructure, implementing land reform;
• Effective governance through transparency, reducing graft and corruption, strengthening partnerships with civil society and the private sector.

Poverty is conceptualized broadly, taking into account not only income but its impact in terms of human deprivation, development, and quality of life.

The Sad Statistics

During the 1990s, the Philippines made significant progress in fighting poverty. According to the Family Income and Expenditure Survey of 1997, poverty incidence fell from 49.3% of total population in 1985 to 40.6% in 1994 and 36.8% in 1997.

According to an ADB study conducted by Ernie Pernia and Arsenio Balisacan, however, the decline in poverty rates did nothing to improve the country’s notoriously inequitable income distribution. Despite the more-or-less sustained economic growth from 1985 to 1997, the poorest 20% of the population only improved their income 0.5% for every 1% growth in average income. In other words, they slipped further behind and income inequality became even more extreme.

The absolute gains were attributable to rapid economic growth during the Ramos administration, increased foreign investment, relative political stability, and decent public sector revenues associated with the privatizations introduced as part of the FVR reform agenda.

Although the Philippines escaped the Asian financial crisis in better shape than many of its neighbors, the crisis did have a significant impact, an impact exacerbated by the damage done to the agricultural sector by the El Niño phenomenon during 1997-98. Both urban and rural sectors were hard hit by rising prices and a weakened labor market, causing poverty to begin edging up again. These factors contributed to a major increase in the number of Filipinos earning less than $276 a year (considered the minimum required to meet basic living requirements here), from 27 million in 1997 to 31 million in 2000 (39.4% of the population)

Enough statistics! Let’s turn to a brief discussion of two practical areas that illustrate what we’re talking about.

Practical Illustration #1: Malnutrition and Hunger

I have been acutely aware of the relationship between poverty and hunger since my first trip here in 1982. As a statistical programmer cum development economist on a USAID-funded project based at Cornell, I came to Manila to analyze data from a national nutrition survey. The survey, conducted by the National Nutrition Council (NNC), provided the basis for targeting food and nutrition services designed for mothers and children in the most impoverished parts of the archipelago.

Although the work I did was both technologically primitive and abstract - tabulations painstakingly extracted from a Fujitsu computer using an ancient Fortran compiler and hand-drawn maps with stick-pins and annotations showing malnutrition prevalence rates - it was also a real eye-opener for me. While I had studied political and economic development at a theoretical level for years, those endeavors had been intellectualized and idealistic. In the process of analyzing that real world nutrition data, I came to appreciate the existential reality that underdevelopment and poverty are more than concepts in a book - they are directly related to starvation, illness, and human degradation.

Thus, I found it sad that when I returned here in 1998, the situation, while somewhat improved, was still not that good. When I again analyzed data on a nutrition study, this time for UNICEF, the numbers were still appalling. Still just numbers spit out by a computer, but still numbers reflecting real human suffering.

On a Philippine Nutrition Country Profile with funding from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Findings showed that, just like 20 years ago, the biggest problems are protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) and micronutrient deficiencies. Paralleling the general trend in poverty statistics, there was a decline in the prevalence of malnutrition during mid-1990s, followed by gradual increases beginning in 1998. There are now approximately 4 million (32%) preschool children who are underweight-for-age, 3 million (20%) adolescents who are underweight-for-age, and 5 million (13.2%) adults who are chronically energy deficient. Vitamin A deficiency is a serious problem, with 7% of pregnant women and 8% of infants under six months being severely deficient. Iron deficiency anemia affects 57% of infants, 51% of pregnant women, and 46% of lactating women.

The primary cause of malnutrition is the inequitable distribution of food, which is related of course to poverty. The typical Filipino diet is grossly inadequate for energy and other nutrients, causing human bodies to compensate for inadequate energy intake by utilizing protein as an energy source; the usual result is PEM. This situation is unlikely to improve as long as an estimated 28 million Filipinos are unable to buy food to meet basic nutritional requirements.

Practical Illustration #2: Failed Land Reform

Poverty in the Philippines is most acute and widespread in rural areas. Although Manila certainly has its share of urban poor, the National Capital Region has the lowest poverty incidence in the country. Nationwide, one can compare the 1997 poverty incidence rates of 21.5% in urban areas to the 50.7% rate in rural areas. The rural poor tend to be self-employed, primarily in agriculture or casual labor. They are almost all landless.

The state of “landlessness” is, of course, nothing new. The Spanish bequeathed to the Americans a colony with an extreme concentration of wealth and land, with the Spanish elites and religious orders controlling vast estates. The Americans themselves assumed title to approximately two-thirds of all arable land in the Philippines.

The American colonial administration saw land reform as crucial for political stability and economic development given the extreme poverty and unequal land distribution. The Americans were not accustomed to the colonial role, and always had a difficult time juggling their own democratic traditions with the realities of administering a colony halfway around the world. The dilemma in this case was how to uphold property rights (meaning the commercial interests of large landholder) while creating a more equitable system that would raise the standard of living of the large numbers of rural poor.

The Americans, as they did in so many other areas, relied on their own idiosyncratic historical experience. They opted for public land grants on the “homestead” model (i.e., the model used in settling Oklahoma and other areas of the American West), theoretically empowering poor peasants to become independent small-scale farmers. This was institutionalized when the American Congress passed the Public Land Act (1902), the Friar Lands Act (1903), and the Rice Share tenancy Act (1933). Each of these laws provided for land entitlements and extended the possibility of landless tenants gaining title to land.

However, in practice, American colonial efforts at land reform strongly favored the landowners, the educated, and the wealthy. Procedures such as land surveying, notice requirements, and excessive legal costs ensured that potential peasant benefactors did not gain access to land. Indeed, landholders took advantage of bureaucratic and costly procedures to not only retain their holdings but to significantly increase the size of their plantations.

Since independence in 1946, the Philippines has had four land reform programs (under Presidents Magsaysay (1955), the first Macapagal (1963), Marcos (1972), and Aquino (1987)). The latter, known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), was by far the most ambitious.

President Aquino made CARP the centerpiece for her economic development policies, capitalizing on the fact that the EDSA Constitution made owning land a constitutional right of Filipino farmers. However, implementation problems existed from the beginning, exacerbated by corrupt and incompetent management. Among the problems with CARP have been:

• An extended land valuation process
• Few and excessively vague guidelines for landowner compensation
• Extended landowner-tenant negotiations
• Lack of bureaucratic coordination
• Inconsistent implementation

Today, CARP is still alive and kicking under the auspices of the Department of Agrarian Reform. Erap made a big deal out of handing out land titles to peasants during photo ops, and President Arroyo is now doing the same. However, the bottom line is that land reform has never been effectively implemented in the Philippines. In fact, a good case can be made that efforts at land reform over the last 15 years have served only to perpetuate the cycle of rural unrest, poverty, and economic stagnation.

Realities

Poverty remains the central development issue in the Philippines and, despite the ambitious development goals laid out in the MTPDP, the country has not been able to sustain the economic growth required to reduce poverty to acceptable levels.

While I offer no solutions, I would make a few closing observations.

First, there is a fundamental disconnect between Filipino élites and the poor. The political leadership in the Philippines has always been drawn from those élites, and those politicians have traditionally played the role of patrons and benefactors, relying on the pork barrel and personal/family funds (often acquired through corruption) to essentially buy votes. The core principle of democracy - that representatives should be drawn from those they represent and advocate for the true interests of their constituents - has not been operative.

Philippine Presidents in particular have been drawn from the ranks of the wealthy and privileged. How can they relate to what it means to be poor or hungry? Even if their heart’s in the right place (which is not all that common), well-photographed visits to squatter settlements are not the answer.

Second, the Philippines system is exceedingly politicized. President Arroyo herself is already focused on the 2004 presidential elections. In a sense, you can’t blame GMA. Her predecessor, Erap, had a built-in constituency among the masa. But President Arroyo must create such a base, given that she is the daughter of a previous President and has virtually nothing in common with the poor people of her country. She has worked hard to develop support among the common folk, dressed in jeans with regularity, and sung on stage with popular recording artists.

She has also latched onto fighting poverty as a key policy emphasis. In her State-of-the-Nation (SONA) address on July 22nd, she emphasized the so-called “rolling stores” - trucks loaded with subsidized rice, rice, sugar, and canned meat that ply the streets of Manila - as a sterling example of her administration’s anti-poverty programs. The only problem was that her remarks had knowledgeable economists practically rolling in the aisles, given that few poor people ever get access to the trucks and only 5% of the nation’s poor live in Metro Manila. But real poverty alleviation programs where they are most needed - say in rural Mindanao - would lack the publicity opportunities of the rolling stores on Manila streets.

True anti-poverty programs take a long time to bear fruit, and the politically-driven nature of Philippine government sector programs almost ensures that the emphasis will continue to be on quick fixes or interventions that provide high visibility and political payoffs.

This is unfortunate given the seriousness of the situation and the implications for the country if concerted action is not taken.

Poverty and malnutrition are already at alarming levels in this country, and the country’s too-rapid population growth is magnifying the strain on limited budgetary resources. The rapidly growing population is jeopardizing the quality of basic social services, contributing to the ongoing decline in quality of basic education, and limiting access to health care (especially primary health care, reproductive health/family planning, immunization, and feeding programs).

Achieving any significant reduction in poverty will require rapid economic growth, growth of a magnitude not seen in recent years. Further, addressing issues of inequality will require significant investments in human capital, especially in improving the quantity and quality of primary education.

Most importantly, implementing effective anti-poverty programs based on the quite valid model laid out in the MTPDP will require strong political leadership and a previously unobserved commitment to truly representing the interests of the poor. Whether such leadership will be forthcoming is, I suppose, the $1,000,000.00 question.

- roy dante ogurida

What Is A Synopsis?

A synopsis is primarily a condensation, an outline or a short presentation of an article, of an essay or of a book.

A synopsis is not a list of opinions, or an examination of the feelings and/or conscious states, e.g. likes, dislikes, preferences, annoyances, etc., of the writer of the synopsis.

If the writer wants to addend his or her reactions, he or she must take care to explain all the relevant points in the original article reacted to.

What Should A Synopsis Look Like?

Part A: The Body of the Synopsis — the minimal conditions

1. First indicate a concern of the author, or a point argued by the author. A complex article will have more than one of these but treat them one by one.

2. What secondary points does the author make to establish the importance of his or her concern, or to reach the conclusion of his or her argument?

3. What reasons does the author give for these secondary points?

4. Answer questions 1, 2, and 3 for each important item in the article.

Part B: Reaction and Evaluation - This is ALWAYS secondary!

1. Your personal judgments must be directed only at items brought up in Part A.

2. Give reasons for your judgments. These can be the citation of counterevidence, concerns about the consequences of the points made by the author, or similar things. These reasons are never just your feelings. Your responsibility as a scholar is to give the reader of your synopsis — assumed to be someone other than a close friend of yours — good reasons for agreeing with your evaluations.