Thursday, October 8, 2009

Report to FNF Philippines after IAF Training

Define the Product and the Processes,
Make the State Lean and Reform Human Resources

Report of Marlon Flavier Tagorda, 2009 IAF Alumnus

Public administration has always been a dynamic element of the government which incessantly responds to the continuous demands of time.  For the economy to grow, the government must able to comply with the requirements of its people.  This entails various applications of relative techniques to prevent the government and its citizens from suffering its consequent distress. 
            The public often equate public administration with corrupt leaders, provides inadequate information, poor quality services, an extended arm of central powers and violation with existing laws.  Though public administration existed long before the turn of the 19th century with Max Weber’s bureaucracy, the perfection of its application was observed to be of bearish trend.  Think tanks have conceptualized a new approach to better off the general welfare of the people by employing the market-driven mechanisms.  
To maximize efficiency and effectiveness in governance, one technique that emerged was the New Public Management (NPM).  The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in a survey conducted concluded that new management techniques and practices involving market-type mechanisms associated with the private sector are being used to bring about changes in the management of public services in countries that have widely varying governance, economic and institutional environments (Larbi, 1999).
The central feature of NPM is the attempt to introduce or simulate, within those sections of the public service that are not privatized, the performance incentives and the disciplines that exist in a market environment.  According to Metcalfe and Richards as cited by Larbi (Ibid.):
“the assumption is that there are benefits in terms of efficiency and effectiveness in exposing public sector activities to market pressures and in using markets to serve public purposes, and that government can learn from the private sector despite contextual differences.”
In addition, Larbi quoted Bienefeld and Mukandala (Ibid.) that:
“a noticeable trend in public sector reforms, in the context of economic crisis and structural adjustment, is that a wider range of administrative functions and the delivery of public services are being subjected to the approach.”
            New Public Management has been a liberal view that was included in the programs of the International Academy for Leadership (IAF) of the Theodor-Heuss-Akademie of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation – the think tank of the liberal FDP of Germany – based in Gummersbach, Germany.  Every year, they conducted a month long online seminar on various liberal ideals which may be participated in by hundreds of global participants in several countries.  This Online Phase is very significant because it is where the IAF will pick at most 25 global mix of participants to continue with the Offline Face-to-Face Seminar at the IAF.
            For 2009, the Online Phase for the New Public Management held last 23 July to 20 August with 80 active participants from 25 countries.  Based on their contributions, the IAF picked only 25 participants to continue to Gummersbach on 27 September to 4 October.


Local Government Partnership

            The Philippine participants to the 2009 International Academy for Leadership (IAF) for its seminar on the New Public Management: Lean State, Lean Government came both from the local governments within the city (Bago City – Edwin de Nicolas) and provincial (Ilocos Sur – Marlon Tagorda) levels.  A partnership that indeed complemented ideas that eventually harmonizes to be worth implemented in either local governments.

            Initially, the partnership has commenced during the Phase II Online Seminar where both belonged to the Southeast and East Asia (SEEA) regional group doing two tasks – Regional Political Analysis and Best Practices.  Though miles apart, the two have successfully forwarded to the IAF their completed tasks on the assigned deadline.  The fact that the deadline fell during one of the Philippines’ special holiday, the two did not waste valuable time and certainly have worked for the completion of their tasks through progressive technologies.



What-a-Fate?

            Time came when the two have to depart Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) but due however to Typhoon Ondoy, their flight was delayed by two hours – the only two hours they have supposedly to connect their flight from Amsterdam to Bonn-Cologne Airport.  Should they have not run as Flash, they might have missed their connecting flight in Cologne.  It normally takes at most 30 minutes for one to transfer within Schipol airport and baggage to be transferred to connecting aircraft for at least 45 minutes.  Apparently, their Flash-ability brought them to their connecting aircraft in less than 10 minutes.  Consequently, their baggages was left at the Schipol Airport.  They arrived in Cologne in time and have met Mr. Alexander (IAF Driver) waiting at the arrival area with Andres Quintero (co-participant from Columbia).  For more than 24 hours, they did not have comfort due to their missed baggages.  Fortunately, it did not take two or three days before they got hold of their baggages.  After their evening Opening Program (27 September), Mr. Michael (IAF Front Desk) handed over their baggages.
           
            In their return flight to Manila, one of the partners (Tagorda) got its baggage in a very poor condition.  When he packed his returning baggage, he unzipped the extension of his trolley to fit the souvenirs and reading materials from Cologne and the Academy respectively.  Additionally, de Nicolas has to pay for his extra baggage since he has to fly back to Bacolod and local limit does not permit him to bring in his baggage without a fee.

            Relative to fate still, the two had worry minds during their stay at the Academy since their home country had experienced the most typhoon-destroyer Ondoy (Ketsana) in 42 years surpassing the all-time record in 1961.  Ondoy posted a 100 percent larger in rainfall as compared to the US’ Hurricane Katrina in August, 2005.  This typhoon made its landfall during their departure delaying their flight consequently.  In their return still, another super typhoon, Parma – a very stationary in motion, has again bounded within the country’s area of responsibility.  When they were at the South China Sea area, from where Tagorda was seated then, very huge and dark clouds were down them and have caused anxiousness to the two.  In spite of this, they have safely touched-down at the NAIA.  In addition, Parma has caused heavy landslide along the highways of Ilocos Sur which again escalated Tagorda’s anxiety since one particular area has been previously declared to be impassable due to more than 10-feet stones and mud mix along the highway.

            Eventually, after all this uncooperative fate, the two has succeeded to be back to their hometown.



Tri-German Chronicles

            The 17th Federal Germany Election was held during the first day (27 September 2009) of the IAF Seminar.  Despite slackened poll rating of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in recent months, it actually acquired its highest vote (14.6%), the highest after 41 years when FDP has received 12.8 percent in the 4th Federal Election (1961).  As to gain and losses, the FDP has the highest gain among all the parties represented at +4.8 percent gain.  As the FDP’s think tank, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation was very elated to receive this historic achievement.  Our presence at the THA during this remarkable episode has indeed given us a perfect view of a seventh heaven atmosphere among the liberals who have seated around the fireplace of the Academy watching acceleration in the seat-share in the federal government.

            At the end of the IAF Seminar (03 October 2009), another momentous account was shared with the Philippine participants as Germany commemorated the Day of German Unity – the German reunification.  A year before celebrating two decades of reunification, the German government has showed to the world that their brave move to unify the Wessi and the Ossi 19 years ago was their most liberal attempt to ultimately achieve a high regard status to Germany as the Europe’s most strong nation. 
           
            The IAF NPM participants have joined IAF’s Birgit Lamm in celebrating her third year of Directorship in the Academy last 01 October 2009.  This event was supposed to be spontaneous but it turned out much planned with the coordination of IAF NPM participants particularly Ahmed Ibraim (Egypt) and the conniving IAF staff.



Citizen’s Charter as the Best Practice

            Part of the presentation of Tagorda during their regional report on the Best Practices Implementation of NPM tools was the Citizen’s Charter that gained acceptance and envy among all the other countries represented in the seminar.  The Philippine participants deemed Citizen’s Charter as the Best Practice to present during the Regional Presentation. 

It has the following contents that correspondingly answered particularly the deficiencies (in parenthesis) of public administration, to wit: vision and mission (far removed from citizens); frontline services offered and the clientele (poor information); step-by-step procedure (inefficiency); responsible officer and employee (accountability); maximum time to conclude the process (slow); required documents and their relevance (too expensive); procedure for filing complaints (slow, poor information); allowable period for extension (slow); and feedback mechanisms (far removed from citizens).                                                                         
With the above contents of a Citizen’s Charter, most of the deficiencies of public administration may be answered.  Basically, a government must clearly define the products they offer to its customers to refrain the government from being tagged as institution offering poor information.  After this product definition, a given flowchart of the step-by-step procedure will as well be defined with the responsible officer/s and employee/s to respond to the inefficiency and accountability issues raised for public administration.  The cost of public service will eventually be cleared since requirements will be laid down and be presented with the citizens.  As for the feedback and complaint mechanisms, the government designed relevant avenues where the citizens may forward their complaints to answer the sentiments of the citizens that they are far removed from public administration.

Briefly discussed, the following are the steps in crafting the Citizen’s Charter: 1.) Identify and Prioritize Office Services; 2.) Record and Review Existing Systems and Procedure; 3.) Re-engineer and Set Service Standards and Performance Pledge; 4.) Set up Feedback, Complaints and Redress Mechanisms; and 5.) Write and Package the Citizen’s Charter.

 
To date, the following countries have a Citizen’s Charter: US, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Argentina, Netherlands, Canada, Portugal, France, Italy, Uganda, Namibia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, United Kingdom, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Samoa, Australia, Peru and Chile (last two countries added as comment by Luz Arce Ramos, one of the moderators).

Being proud to be the presenter of the Citizen’s Charter, it eventually subsided when in fact, the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) has this charter 10 years ago evident with the MCGM Citizen’s Charter brought by the representative of India (Priyanka Sharma) who happened to work with Praja, a Non-Government Organization of India which drafted the Charter for Mumbai.

            However, MCGM Charter complemented the Citizen’s Charter of the Philippine municipalities/cities since it justified the significance of having a charter, a handbook for its citizens.  With the global mix of participants, universal comments were as well presented and actually very relevant to possibly improve the bureaucratic process in the Philippines.  The most relevant recommendation then was from Wael Nawara of Egypt emphasizing on the volume of requirements needed to get a certain service (or in NPM sense, product) from the government.  That though steps are clearly presented to its citizens, it would be more effective if the prerequisites may be lean down and only essential requisites are demanded from the applicant.



YES – NO Arguments

            During the last day of the seminar, a very simple yet notable scene was observed when the final workshop was conducted – the arguments of NPM.  Opponents of the NPM have undeniably posted several attacks on its implementation, be it on privatization or structure related.  NPM advocates will say “Yes” while NPM attackers will certainly say “No”.  This was the very core of the workshop discussion.  Though participants were expected to be NPM-conformant, within their small group of eight, there exists an affirmative and apparently a negative debate parties. 

            Typically, a certain individual counter a particular argument.  Should there be no democratic means of expressing ideals, everyone might have just say “Yes” to the assertion.  However, to make the counter-argument stronger, several “No” was raised.  Eventually, due to a common objective, the self-group arguments decided to be revised and presented in a more agreeable phrase among its members.


Is it all Theory?

The state may have become leaner and the control of its affairs may be more manageable.  With the NPM, the criticisms of the stereotyped public administration may be offset.  Correspondingly, this innovative approach may appear to be defenseless and may not be the prime methodology of the state if the leaders still remain to be off-tangent with its general objectives.  Vulnerability of tactics depends largely with the values of the leaders of the organization.
            Government, particularly the political-administrative leaders, must possess essential values to ensure the people with equitable benefits.  Twenty-first century leaders must formulate courses of actions to mobilize resources down to the grassroots level and must have profound respect for human rights.
            In the Philippine setting, lots of different flagship of every national administration have been introduced and were cut-off after every turn of new administration.  This is one of the reasons why the country seems not to achieve development.  Cutting shorts every national goals and objectives relative to the foremost leader brought unsound and wobbly administration. 
With the present administration, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has instituted her 10-point agenda that encompasses vision to promote livelihood, infrastructure, decentralization and peace process.  In her 2009 State of the Nation Address (SONA), PGMA enumerated several achievements that confer her agenda.  Particularly, she stressed that her administration has invested three times that of three previous administrations combined in technical and skills training.  She even presented one student (Jennifer Silbor) who has acquired medical transcription skills that paved way to her significant income.  On the contrary, similar students as Silbor have reported days after the SONA that one institution which implemented this government training seems to be deflective.  Though PGMA has confidently emphasized the achievement, there were problems encountered.  This may be traced back on the management of this undertaking.  Should there have been efficient implementation and monitoring of every program, there may be no drawbacks.  This may be asserted with the manpower that directly holds the program. 
            Hence, reform must not at all be within the system but more importantly and of the greatest essence, within the human resources of the system.  Economist Toby Monsod presented her research on the Philippine bureaucracy at the Philippine Economic Society 2008 Conference.  The study discussed inequities, position overlapping and the 2004 personnel size of the government that accounted to almost 1.5 million employees.  These data is the main concern of the New Public Management – to make the state lean. 
            In conclusion, reform, primarily in the system, may have a lesser bearing as it may tackle only the institutional framework of the government.  Reform within the human resources may be more liberally affective as it fundamentally deals with humans.  As the government desires for a leaner state, the government must take a liberal move to possibly trim down its size.  The government must forgo some of the inequities and position overlapping by reforming the organization of each department and/or agency.  Consequently, the government will be easier to manage, programs will be effectively carried and the expenses relative to the defunct positions can be utilized for other demands of its citizenry.


Sources:
1.    Arroyo, Gloria. 2009. State of the Nation Address (SONA). PIA, Manila, Philippines
3.    Larbi, George. 1999. Discussion Paper No. 112 The New Public Management Approach and Crisis States. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Switzerland
4.    Monsod, Toby. 2008. The Philippine Bureaucracy: Incentive Structures and Implications for Performance. Philippine Economic Society (PES), Philippines

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