ISSUES AND CHALLENGES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Sulu State College School of Graduate Studies Ar. Murad Tuttuh, uap, durp

Issues and Challenges in Public Administration:

- Should PA be ethnocentric or universal? - Should PA be guided primarily by theories and principles? - Should it adapt itself to environment pressures and consequently seek new approaches in responding to the challenges of the environment?

- It is universal but their applicability and relevance may yet be conditioned by the physical and social environment.

Principles of administration

Development-oriented PA has to consider: - Productivity, efficiency, effectiveness, accountability, budgetary deficits, and unstable economy, among others. - It must address poverty, ecology, social justice, inequality and disproportionate distribution of the goods of society.

Philippine Public Administration

- energy crisis due to lack of foresight and planning; - ecological imbalance brought about by lack of environmental awareness and consciousness; - unregulated population growth principally religious-inspired and unappreciated quality of life; - moral, mental (values) and environmental pollutions manifest the inability of the government to enforce ethical standards for social and ecosystem maintenance;

Issues and challenges

- lack of individual and social discipline; - government's legitimacy of rule is challenged thus challenging its capability; - capability is an index or factor of systematic stability.

Issues and challenges

In a Philippine setting, should we:
- go for a Market model of public administration? - stay on with the Bureaucratic model? - should we operate using the Hybrid of two models?

Traditional model
Osborne and Gaebler contend that traditional model is more obsessed with the delivery of service with a tunnel vision - 'tunnel vision' described as finding solution or doing something to a problem as soon as it reaches crisis stage. This perception should give way to results-oriented focus with measurable goal achievements.

PA in developing countries
Ferrel Heady precludes;

1. it has imitative rather than indigenous pattern characterized by some modern Western bureaucratic administration.

2. it is deficient in skilled manpower necessary for developmental programs; there is a shortage of trained administrators with management capability, developmental skills and technicals competence;

3. there is emphasis on orientations other than production-directed and program oriented goals. It uses public service as substitute for social security program and a means to help solve the unemployment program.

4. there is a wide discrepancy between format and reality as demonstrated by the urge to make things seem more than what they actually are, resulting in a gap between expectations and realities.

5. it has a generous measure of operational autonomy as several groups converge in the bureaucracy. There are technical experts, professional experts or technocrats and the military, each desirous to formulate and implement policy decisions on their own respective turfs.

Basic issues of PA

1. Policy issues which involve the core role of public administrators.

Policy issues
-welfare policies regulations and control of urban sprawl, slum clearance, public housing, control of crimes, transport, education, revenue sourcing, social insurance, health policy and public assistance

Policy issues

- economic policies for tax sources, credit control, stock market operation and regulation, antitrust enforcement, encouragement of small business, debt burden and loan repayment.

Policy issues
Labor policies which include regulation of industrial disputes, workers' right to organize and stage strike; government encouragement to the formulation of labor movements, and the impact of labor group pressure upon politics and administration.

Policy issues
Resource policy which have to do with such concern like shrinking farm population and yield, price control of agricultural products, forms of agricultural assistance and subsidies,cooperative movements, land-use planning, natural resources conservation, energy supply, providing balance between population and resources.

Basic issues of PA

2. Organization issues which are instrumental aspects of management or factors involved in internal administration.

Organization Issues
- administrative structure : Sectoral or multi-sectoral within a specific geographic area; Indigenization or western type of political institutions Decentralization or centralization?

Organization Issues
Centralization development is of comprehensive planning, societal coordination, allocation of resources to meet needs for decision-making for power integration.

Organization Issues
Decentralization development is generation of initiative, effort and social responsibility throughout the whole society. However, the dispersal of power from center to periphery via decentralization either by de-concentration or devolution is not problem-free.

Organizational issues
- Lateral and horizontal allocation of responsibilities and programs; Relations between line and staff units; Relations between departments and chief executives; Use of incentives and reward, penalties and sanctions; Government and NGO participation.
: are increased productivity and enhanced values are better achieved with the use of hierarchical principle of authority or under non-hierarchical structure?

There has been a universal recognition and acceptance of citizen participation in public affair. People have to participate in governance, accept duties and responsibilities (do away with concerns on rights and privileges) in order to deserve the benefits of development.

The most important concern of Philippine PA is fiscal policy and management. Philippine needs a well-defined monetary and fiscal policy which should address the debt problem, repayment scheme which looks into the service responsibilities and functions of the government, a decisive fiscal program able to tap revenue resources through tax policies, cut back on government spending.

Victor Ferkiss: The future is not only to be known but to be controlled because it holds the key to destiny.

Wassalam and magsukol!