.I.
A POLITICAL SYSTEM DEFINES ITS BUREAUCRACY:
That the Philippine government has consistently failed in satisfying the needs and growing
expectations of the Filipino people is a fact rather than a perception. What is widely perceived
however, is that such failure of government is only due to the inefficiency of its bureaucracy to
produce and deliver public goods and services. To accept the perception that the inefficiency of
the bureaucracy is the main culprit in the failu re of government is to grant the dichotomization
of the orientation of governance and the administration of its affairs.
The form and substance of the bureaucracy as the main machinery of government is heavily
defined by the latter's policies and politics. It cannot be expected to produce and deliver goods
and services corresponding to the needs of the people if the policies of government are anti-
people. In the same manner that the bureaucracy cannot operate differently and independently of
the ills of th e Philippine political system.
A political system is based on its economic foundation thus it is beyond doubt that economic
power makes political power. In a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society such as the Philippines,
it is easy to conclude that the fo reign investors, their local counterparts such as the big
compradors and landlords, who are the main players in the economy, control the state thru their
cohorts in government. That it is their business, to effectively manage the affairs of the
bureaucrac y as a means and source of graft and corruption for further self-aggrandizement and
their perpetuation in power.
The basic issue of the misprioritization and misutilization of the national budget clearly
represents that the business of governance depends on the interests of the power holders rather
than the people they govern. The coming of the public debt aspect in the 80s worsens the
misprioritization of government's annual budget in favor of foreign debt payment allocations and
is...
Max Weber’s work on Bureaucracy focuses on the formation of a large, structured, and
impersonal organization that will influence the lives of everyone born in the modern era we are
in. The formal organization concept is the skeleton of Weber’s Bureaucracy. As an introduction
there three different types of formal organization: there is the voluntary type where in the sense
that people may freely join them or withdraw from them like religious movements, professional
associations and political parties. Some are coercive, in the sense that people are forced to join
them like primary level schooling or prisons. Other organizations are utilitarian which is
probably very important in a capitalist world since people enter these types of organization to
join a business in order to earn a living.
Bureaucracy is the response to the problem posed by larger and more complex formal
organization because an extensive organization will need a form of order of the ranks or chain of
command to coordinate the activities of its members. Bureaucracy provides a hierarchical
authority structure that is supposed to operate under certain rules and procedures. Understanding
bureaucracy is the key to the analysis of formal organizations. The word “bureaucracy” connotes
negative images in everyday speech. It usually brings to mind images of, “red tape” or “buck
passing” where the organization requires forms in triplicate; files are often lost, incorrect
statements of accounts, and the inability to respond to inquiries. Yet even though “bureaucracy”
is often linked to the word “inefficiency” from the view of the individual, it has strived for the
simple reason that it is the most efficient means ever devised of making a large scale
organization work.
In the Philippines, bureaucracy plays a large part in the operation of our government office from
the national level to the local, sometimes the result of it is good but more often than not,
bureaucracy is corrupted by the officials or the...
Bureaucracy is a type of administration that is characterized by specialization, professionalism, and
having a secure place in office. When you have bureaucracy, there are common ways in which it
functions. The ways in which it functions are that there are fixed areas with certain rules, or laws that
are governed by an administration. The authority to give commands is given in a fair manner, which is
distributed evenly within the set jurisdiction. Within the bureaucratic structure, you have an office
hierarchical structure, where the higher office supervises the lower office. There is usually one person
in charge of it all. This person must have a considerable amount of training, education, and many hours
in the field. The person in charge does not have a job, but in other words a duty. The office stands
behind, not a person like in the old days, but rather an idea such as a cultural belief, or standpoint. This
person sometimes gets tenure for life, but not always, they also get a fixed salary that usually comes
with an old age pension. This person usually starts at the bottom, and works his way up to the top of the
positions, if not position wise, then up the salary ladder.
Bureaucracy has outlived any other way of setting things up is due to the speed, precision, unity, and
knowledge of files that it brings with it. The true bureaucracy has no human emotions attached with it,
such as love and hatred. These human emotions take away from the calculations that bureaucracy
brings with it. The more that bureaucracy is dehumanized the better chance it has of it being successful.
Once bureaucracy is set in place, it is one of the hardest to destroy, because it puts community action
into place with societies actions. It is like a big chain reaction, when someone at the top puts something
into motion, it has a rippling effect and is felt right down at the bottom of the chain. It works like a
machine, if one part of the machine breaks down; it all needs to get...
