Republic of the Philippines

Technological University of the Philippines

College of Industrial Education
Graduate Program

LYNDY G. PANTAO
Program: Ed.D. - IEM
Course: MM 517 Public Administration
Professor: ROMEO S. EBONITE, Ed.D.
Semester: Second Semester
School Year: 2019-2020

Insight Paper No. 3

The General Environment of Public Administration

The Legal Structure of Public Administration in the Philippines

The administrative system of the Republic of the Philippines is comprised of a
central government and its territorial and political subdivisions, which enjoy a local
autonomy: the provinces, cities, municipalities and barangays and the autonomous
regions in Muslim Mindanao and Cordilleras.
The Central government headed by the President of the Republic, with at least 18
Department Secretaries as her alter ego, exercises general supervision over local
governments. It should be noted however, that the central government is not a highly
centralized system, but operates on the principle of deconcentration or transfer
of powers from the central/national level to lower offices (regional,
provincial) administratively.
The autonomous regions in Muslim Mindanao and the Cordilleras which are
comprised of provinces, cities, municipalities and geographical areas sharing, among
other things, common and distinctive historical and cultural heritage and economic and
social structures are provided legislative powers within their territorial jurisdiction over
matters pertaining to, among other things, ancestral domain and natural resources;
regional, urban and rural planning development; and economic, social and tourism
development;
Although under the general supervision of the central government, the provincial
government enjoys a certain level of local autonomy (under the principle of devolution or
transfer of powers from the national government to a political subdivision) and is entitled
to an equitable share in the proceeds of the utilization and development of the national wealth
within its area.
There are also certain environment and natural resources-related functions that have been
devolved to the provincial governments pursuant to national policies and subject to
supervision, control and review of the Department of Environment and Natural
Resources (DENR), as follows: enforcement of forestry laws limited to community-
based forestry projects, pollution control law, small scale mining law and other laws on
the protection of environment; and mini-hydroelectric projects for local purposes. The
issuance of permits to extract sand, gravel and quarry resources has also been given
exclusively to the provincial governor, pursuant to the ordinance of sangguniang
panlalawigan (or provincial board, the provincial legislative body).

What is Public Policy?

Policy creates orderly structures and a sense of direction. Without policy, an
organization would be in chaos and will not be able to achieve its goals and objectives.
In the same way, public administration cannot exist in a policy vacuum. Policies made
must answer or correspond to specific situations. Public administration is inherently an
instrument of policy.
It should be noted that any policy is a decision. A public policy is whatever a
government decides to do or not to do. On the other hand, a public program consists of
all those activities designed to implement the public policy: often this calls for the
creation of organizations, public agencies, and bureaus, which in turn need to create
more policies that give guidance to the organization’s employees on how to put into
practice the overall public policy.
Public policy is hierarchical. Policies come from the top. More focused policies
are made down the organizational structures.

The Policy Making Process

Policy making is a never-ending process. It is not a tangible thing. Based on the

model shown, the public policymaking cycle is a conceptual model that views the public
policy process as moving through a succession of stages: (1) agenda setting (or the
identification of a policy issue), (2) policy decision or nondecision, (3) implementation,
(4) program evaluation or impact analysis, and, finally, (5) feedback, which leads to
revision or termination. Thus the process comes full circle—which is why it is called a
“cycle.” A review of this process will show that public administration is both at the heart
of the process and a feature of every aspect of it.
Agenda setting is the process by which ideas or issues bubble up through the
various political channels to wind up for consideration by a political institution such as a
legislature or court. The agenda-setting process often makes extensive use of the mass
media to take a relatively unknown or unsupported issue and, through publicity, expand
the numbers of people who care about the issue so that an institution, whether it be city
hall or the Congress, is forced to take some action.
Public policymaking is the totality of the processes by which a government
decides to deal or not to deal with a particular problem or concern. It is a never-ending
process.
 Implementation is the process of putting a government program into effect; it is
the total process of translating a legal mandate, whether an executive order or an
enacted statute, into appropriate program directives and structures that provide services
or create goods. Implementation, the doing part of public administration, is an inherently
political process.
Any evaluation is an assessment. A program evaluation is the systematic
examination of activities undertaken by government to make a determination about their
effects, both for the short term and the long range. This will tell if the program was
effective or not. The concepts of efficiency and effectiveness are the standard criteria by
which programs are evaluated. Program evaluations, while usually undertaken by the
executive and legislative branches of government, are sometimes even done by the
courts in response to petitions by client groups.

The Internal and External Perspective of Power

Power is the ability or the right to exercise authority over others. Those with
traditional power or the power to make large campaign contributions get to make or
heavily influence public policy. Influential people tend to have more power in the policy
making process. Whether they do it with a gun or a check is dependent on local
conditions. We are all subject to the powers that be that force us to work or school and
constrain us from straying too far from what is expected. Power for me maintains the
orderliness in a society or an organization. Without it, members at the bottom of the
organization will not follow those who are at the top of the organization. The world is
organized into an immense hierarchy of power: political leaders have power over their
followers, managers over their workers, and parents over their children.
According to George Orwell, “power is not a means, it is an end” and that “the
object of power is power.” For me, it means that it is the power that is responsible why
an organization maintains its structure. Without power, there will be no orderliness in an
organization. People at the bottom of the organizational structure respect the top
managers because of power. One sure thing about power is that we all understand it.
Power is something that someone has over us. This is the reason why power is very
important in an organization.
Ordinary people—as well as scholars—have hesitated to talk about power. For
many, power is not a subject for polite conversation. Many of us—including Orwell—
have often equated power with force, brutality, unethical behavior, manipulation,
connivance, and subjugation. Some use power in a negative way. Power drives some
people to be good or bad. It can stimulate a person to be good or bad.

The Culture of Public Organization

Each culture demands different behaviors. We behave differently in every
situation. We talk different to our friends on the street than we do to our parents or
teachers. This literally acculturates us to the fact that each time we join another
organization—whether for work, worship, or weight lifting—we expect to—and are
usually eager to—learn the new jargon and accepted ways of the new group’s culture. If
we take a look at administrative institutions, we can say that they are part of the greater
culture of their society at the same time that they develop and nurture their own
organizational cultures. We learn how to cope from these different environments starting
from childhood. Public organizations have different cultures. However, they all have this
in common: they interact with the outside environment of the overall culture. In this
sense alone it can be said that all public organizations must deal with two cultures: their
unique internal culture and the common outside culture.