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 PhilippineJournal of Public Administration, Vol. XXVI, Nos. 3 & 4 (July-October1982)

Toward a Review of Research and

Knowledge in Philippine Public
Administration

ROMEO B. OCAMPO*
A review of what has been attempted to be known and what has been known
about Philippine Public Administration can be put in a framework of thirty years of
research, worthwhile questions, and preliminary hypotheses. At the College of Public
Administration,public policy and program administrationhave provided a link between
line and staff subject matters, and between the focus on governmental administration
and the concern with nationaldevelopment problems and processes. Worthwhile ques-
tions on PhilippinePublic Administration range from the policy-prescription'type to
administration-orientedprescriptive category. Seven "hypotheses" or initial guesses
about the thrusts of Public Administration research in the Philippines and tentative
assessments of its accomplishments provide a comprehensive summary of the state of
the "science."

Introduction monopoly of research, let alone knowl-

edge, of public administration in the
This article represents both an am- Philippines. 1
bitious project and a modest effort. It What will be done here is to lay the
attempts to provide a framework for
basis for determining what has been
reviewing scholarly research and tried to find out and what has been
knowledge about Philippine public known about public administration, in
administration during the last three the Philippine context and according
decades. It does not actually review to the author's own lights. First, there
the extant literature. Any references will be a brisk descriptive outline of
or allusions made are for the most Public Administration as a field of
part to the institutional and individual study. Like other disciplines, this
works of the faculty, staff, and some field has had its share of definitional
of the students or graduates of the problems, boundary disputes, and
College of Public Administration, identity crises, and it will not be pre-
University of the Philippines (CPA-
UP). Even so, most of the views ex- 1
Established in 1952 as the Institute of
pressed in this paper are those of the Public Administration, the CPA had a good
author. Needless to say, neither the headstart in the Philippines and the Asian
College nor the author claims any region. Many other schools or programs of
Public Administation have since been set up
in public and private universities in the Phil-
*Professor and Director, Local Govern- ippines and the region.
ment Center, College of Public Administra- In 1957, the Institute started publishing
tion, University of the Philippines, Manila. the Philippine Journal for Public Adminis-
This paper was prepared for presentation tration, a quarterly with international
at the 1981 Social Science Symposium authorship and circulation. Some profes-
sponsored by the National Research Council sional management journals of comparable
of the Philippines at UP Los Bafios, 6-7 quality have recently appeared in the Phil-
November 1981. ippines.

219
220 PHILIPPINE JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
220 PHILIPPINE JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
tended that this article can give the and methods (0 & M), and fiscal ad-
last word on the issues involved. 2 ministration (budgeting, accounting,
Second, there will be an effort to etc.). At the same time, it has devoted
identify some of the questions that attention to "line" functions of for-
seem to be worth raising and answer- mulating, implementing, and operating
ing in this field, and to characterize substantive programs and projects. In-
the utility and quality of the ques- deed, in recent years, Public Adminis-
tions posed and answers given. Third, tration has increasingly given focal
there will be some preliminary hypoth- attention and institutional locus (par-
eses on the research effort that has ticularly in American schools) to the
been made and the knowledge that processes and analysis of public policy
has been gained so far. as well as management. At the CPA,
where public policy and program ad-
Public Administration: An ministration has been instituted as a
Expanding Field major specialization area, this area of
study has provided a conceptual link
In general, Public Administration is between line and staff subject matters,
concerned with the systematic study and between the focus on govern-
and improvement of government mental administration and the con-
capacity and practice in forming poli- cern with problems and processes of
cies, making decisions, implementing national development.
them, and securing the desired results.
The study is focused on the decision- Public Administration is both a pro-.
making and implementing functions fessional and scholarly discipline. One
of the executive branch and its agen- can make a career of it as a govern-
cies, including local governments. A ment-based practitioner, as a univer-
spinoff from Political Science, Public sity-based researcher or teacher, and/
Administration has, however, ranged or as an intermediary, a consultant.
far and wide in terms of the dimen- Just how much of a specialization it
sions of government that it has exam- can be is a disputable matter. The
ined and the other disciplines from generalist school considers practice in
which it has drawn perspectives and this field as an "art" learned mostly
methods. Thus, it has ranged over the on the job, but it is believed to be an
political, economic, social, and cultur- art that can be improved and profes-
al circumstances, aspects, and effects sionalized through training, education
of government management and (particularly at the graduate level),
policy. Within the executive branch, and scientific study. This was, at any
Public Administration has retained its rate, one assumption for the establish-
"traditional" focus on such "staff" ment of the Institute of Public Ad-
functions as planning, organization ministration (IPA) in the University of
the Philippines (UP) in 1952. The
concern of the Public Administration
2
Such problems are often discussed in with practical improvement, together
the context of the "New Public Administra- with the premium placed on expe-
tion" movement in the U.S. Some feel that rience, skills, and techniques in admin-
Filipino Public Administrationists do not istrative problem-solving, has cast it in
identify with the American version of the the mold of professional schools as
discipline's identity crises; but see Jose D.
Soberano, "A General Definitional Theory distinguished from basic-discipline de-
of Public Administration," 21 July 1981 partments in the University. Nonethe-
(mimeo.). less, like the basic social sciences, Pub-

July-October
 PHILIPPINE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 221
PHILIPPINE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 221
lic Administration assumes that its predict such consequences and to
object of inquiry is amenable to prescribe action to enable the subject
scientific methods, i.e., to explicit to control or influence the course and
theory, empirical research, and logical outcomes of events. The crucial tasks
and even quantitative analysis, al- of evaluation and prescription require
though its students can probably do a clear conception of the elements of
less (if any) experimental work and values and purposes (as well as an eye
must grapple more with the normative on motives and means) as independent
and dynamic elements of administra- variables, criteria of judgment, or ob-
tion and politics. jective functions. The difficulties of
these tasks are accentuated by the
These orientations and assumptions various roles which the student of
characterize the kinds of knowledge Public Administration may play as
required in Public Administration. researcher, critic, or advocate.
One should first acknowledge the pos-
sibility that much of the knowledge The burdens of enhancing under-
may have taken the form of skills, standing and improving public ad-
insights, and inchoate theorizing ministration have been growing with
gained by practitioners from expe- the increasing concern with the rela-
rience, applied to particular situations, tions between government and society
and embodied in straight-forward doc- as well as with the internal intricacies
uments without any reference to a of policy and management. One is no
body of more general literature. But longer satisfied (as one may have been
such pieces of information may be at one time) with trying to understand
perishable and non-transferable, un- society and nation as an environment-
less recorded and interpreted by the al influence on government but also as
researcher as part of -a more explicit the "dependent variable" affected by
and accessible fund of knowledge. At government for good or ill. The essen-
its best; knowledge in Public Adminis- tial problematique of making govern-
tration is or should be useful for a ment policy and administration more
variety of purposes. As perhaps in rational, in the sense of making delib-
other disciplines, it must inform our erate choices among alternative ends
understanding of classes and interrela- and means - and, in some sense, suc-
tionships of policy and administrative cessfully implementing its choices -
phenomena through. appropriate de- has remained. But the tasks of schol-
scription and explanation of trends, arly understanding and practical im-
events, or behaviors, the conditions provement have been vastly enlarged
under which they obtain, and the and complicated, not only because of
variable relations involved. Such such a shift in standpoint, but also be-
understanding must be based on the cause of changes in the object of in-
interpretative framework of theory or, quiry. The goals, scale, and complex-
if one likes, "the informing grace of ity of government have grown, and
ideology." In turn, it must provide the along with them the scope and diver-
basis and contain the critical elements sity of the norms, objectives, and or-
needed for evaluating the relative ganizational forms prescribed for ad-
weights, concomitants, and conse- ministrative practice and policy. Nar-
quences of administrative events or ac- rower notions of organizational sim-
tions. Furthermore, knowledge in plicity, administrative efficiency, and
Public Administration must be suffi- cost-saving economy, for example,
ciently cumulative to enable one to have given ground to broader con-

1982
222 PHILIPPINE JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

cepts of institutional sophistication, forms and varying degrees in Public

technical proficiency, organizational Administration. The corresponding
productivity and effectiveness, pub- purposes or functions of inquiry and
lic benefit, and social equity. At the some hopefully representative kinds
same time, the simpler virtues remain of issues and variables are listed with
nagging challenges. The demand for each question. These categories are
probity- as well as competence in probably not exhaustive nor are they
government is still there, and there is mutually exclusive. The list begins
still much to be said for reducing with a policy-prescription type of
bureaucratic size and red tape, sim- question and ends with an adminis-
plifying the complex, and institution- tration-oriented kind prescriptive
alizing good practices. For the mo- question. It includes a question en-
ment, however, Public Administration tailing explanation in terms primarily
has been impressed with the amazing of policy purposes, technical reasons,
expansion of its field. and political or bureaucratic motives,
and another question entailing expla-
Public Administration Research: nation that stresses administrative
Purposes and Issues causes or factors. It may be logical to
begin with the policy-prescription
What are some of the questions question, but this has not been neces-
worth asking in this field? In the next sarily the order followed by scholar-
section is a list of questions, many of ship in Public Administration.
which have been asked in different

A Short List of Purposes and Issues

Purpose and Question Issues/Variables

(1) Prescription: What should gov- Choice of: objectives, priorities - Po-
ernment do about social prob- litical stability, economic growth,
lems? social equity, environmental quality

Roles - Leave to private sector; regu-

late; participate; take over a prob-
lem/program
Means -- Financing vs. direct adminis-
tration; public enterprise vs. regular
department; mixed strategies.
(2) Description: What has it done? Problems, objectives, targets

Resources mobilized - Taxes, public

debt; non-governmental

Organization -- Existing or new; sec-

toral or integrated; leadership

July-October
PHILIPPINE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 223

Implementation - Financial tools;

control techniques; accomplish-
ments

(3) Explanation: Why has it done Purposes (see [1] above)

what it has?
Other reasons given - Public goods,
externalities; new organizational
focus; technical innovation

Motives - Security, crises; group -or

institutional pressures; empire-
building

(4) Evaluation: How well has it Evaluation criteria, standards, and

done? indicators - Personnel number,
honesty, competence, morale; co-
ordination; target-fulfillment; in-
tended and unintended effects; size
and incidence of costs and benefits

Methods of evaluation research and

analysis

Organization and techniques for moni-

toring and evaluation

(5) Explanation: Why has it suc- Policy and organizational design vs.
ceeded or failed? actual implementation

Leadership, organizational structure,

management technology, substan-
tive expertise, bureaucratic behav-
ior

Resource constraints -- Funds, man-

power, physical

Social factors - Community prepared-

ness (training), organization, partic-
ipation

Exogenous variables -Prices, weather,

etc.

(6) Prediction: Will it do better given Kind of problem/objective - Com-

certain conditions? mercial profit vs. social benefit;

1982
 224 PHILIPPINE JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

easy social targets (e.g. family plan-

ning "acceptors") or hard cases

Leadership type - Authoritarian,

bureaucratic, technocratic, demo-
cratic
Kind of organization - Centralized vs.
decentralized, sectoral vs. integra-
ted
Resources - Funds and sources, num-
ber and quality of personnel, state
of management technology
Circumstances - "Political will", local
power structure, community inter-
est
(7) Prescription: How can it do Better planning, information, commu-
better? nications
Organizational design, personnel train-
ing, change in incentives

Change in leadership, institutionaliza-

tion or "routinization of charisma"

Change in external circumstances

Public Administration Research: contributions to knowledge have been

Thrusts and Assessments few and far between. The last compre-
hensive survey within easy memory
What follows are some initial guess- was done by Cariflo in 1952. 3 This
es about the thrusts of public Admin- has been occasionally supplemented
istration research and tentative assess- by informal reviews of other research
ments of its accomplishments so far and related efforts, by discussions of
against the previous list. These bold the state of Public Administration in
"hypotheses" are probably biased not general (the so-called "New Public
only by the author's conception of Administration" in the US in particu-
the field and of the questions worth lar), and by the more systematic ef-
raising, but also by what has actually fort (but hard-to-understand writings)
been accomplished. of Soberano to grapple with the def-
initional, ontological and grand-
First, it should be noted that a
great deal of research has been done
on a wide range of topics under the 3
Ledivina V. Carifio, "To Advance Ad-
rubric of Public Administration in the ministrative Knowledge: Research in the
Philippines. However, general assess- College of Public Administration, 1952-
ments of the effort, its results, and its 1973," c. 1973 (mimeo.).

July-October
 PHILIPPINE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 225
PHILIPPINE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 225
theory issues around Public Adminis- and processes, of policies, partly as a
tration.4 result of growing interest in methods
of evaluation research and policy
Second, as Carifio had begun to ob- analysis. But the potential strength of
serve, scholarly research has tended to Public Administration research may
veer away from the internal processes lie in staying close to or keeping sight
of administration to the wider realm of its home base while venturing out
of political and socioeconomic devel- in frontier areas of policy and devel-
opment "out there" and, at least in opment.
more recent years, has concentrated
on certain dimensions or areas of what Third, research in Public Adminis-
is called "development administra- tration has tended to be more of the
tion" and policy. This trend may have descriptive kind than the theoretical
been offset by the growth in the kind. A great deal of empirical in-
"service" or applied type of manage- formation has been accumulated with-
ment studies, but a great deal of these out the benefit of explicit and rigor-
works, along with some extension-re- ous statements of basic assumptions,
lated researches, have not been pub- propositions or hypotheses that would
lished or made generally accessible. enable one to test and interpret re-
search findings and conclusions. This
The interest in public policy pro- is not to say that no theoretical or at
cesses was initially expressed in the least conceptual work has been done
case study research directed and case- at all. Much has been done on such
book edited in 1963 by de Guzman.s issues as coordination, integration,
Since then, CPA researchers have and (to some extent) "corporatism,"
looked more closely into health pro- administrative capability, decentraliza-
grams, population and family plan- tion and. regionalization, service de-
ning, food production, agrarian re- livery and accessibility, citizen partic-
form, rural development, housing and ipation, and local autonomy (the
earlier and institutional version of
urban development, and a few other "self-reliance").
policy areas. While there has been con-
cern with the ultimate outcomes and Fourth, however, there has been
causes associated with the programs little effort to make an inventory of
in these areas, however, efforts in the empirical findings and refine concepts,
CPA have been focused primarily on to take stock of the generalizations
the organizational and management that could be made, and to build
dimensions rather -than the substan- theory upon their basis as well as on
tive aspects of these policy areas. The the general literature. Although a re-
CPA has only recently begun to view of the literature is as much a
directly address the content and con- stock requirement in Public Adminis-
sequenceg, as well as the structures tration as in other disciplines, it is rare
to find more than casual references to
4
previous findings or thinking in the
Soberano, op. cit. Professor Soberano works of its scholars (except probably
has produced tomes of manuscripts about the thesis writers). This may imply ex-
the discipline, but they are intellectually in-
accessible to most. cessive empiricism, bad theorizing if
5 any at all, or plain laziness on our
Raul P. de Guzman (ed:), Patternsin De-
cision-Making: Case Studies in Philippine part.
Administration (Manila: College of Public
Administration, University of the Philip- Fifth, while the strong applied-
pines, 1963). research orientation and experience

1982
226 PHILIPPINE JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

with management studies have gotten of its findings and recommendations is

researchers used to making prescrip- another matter. It is risky enough to
tions, the confidence in this task may recommend structural changes that
still be limited along with the ability blink graft and corruption away, but
to explain and the only-recent ven- Public Administrationists can be more
tures into systematic evaluation re- persuasive here because some of the
search. Another deficiency noted in problems seem obvious by profession-
previous years and probably still al norms (questions of costs and the
around lies in the ability to predict less immediate consequences of struc-
with confidence the consequences of tural change do remain, however).
recommendations. For example, while
there is conviction about the values of Seventh, there is a strong corrective
various forms of administrative decen- for the shortcomings of research in
tralization, one is not sure whether it Public Administration. This is the self-
will really work (or even happen) consciousness about research method-
under a centralized political system. ology, which seems to be growing in
To take another example: The notions sophistication not only in terms of
of and empirical findings on adminis- data-collection strategy but also in
trative capability and its constituent conceptual and analytical design. The
elements sufficiently to predict just interest in evaluation research and
what or which combinations will policy analysis should lead to develop
realize it in practice, and under which more rigorous theory, inventory of
circumstances have not been refined. previous findings, and sharpen hypoth-
Similarly, to what extent would eses before launching the survey or
structural change, personnel training otherwise getting the data. This may
or education, changes in incentives, also revive interest in comparative
and equipment with modem manage- methods - which is kept alive by
ment tools - separately or in combi- "development administration" and
nation - help improve an agency's participation in international work. At
performance and effectiveness? the moment, the case study method,
which used to be largely of the narra-
Sixth, some confidence in specific tive, situational kind, may do service
areas, such as the adverse conse- for more analytical inquiries of a
quences of complex and poorly quantitative as well as qualitative
structured organization and of bureau- nature.
cratic misbehavior, has been built up.
Some much-needed research by de The last hypothesis is a concluding
Guzman, Carifio, Alfiler, and others and saving one. The author could be
has been done on the latter, and more wrong about -the previous guesses,
systematically than probably ever be- especially the more serious allegations.
fore, despite the constraints on such Hypotheses must be refutable, and it
an inquiry. 6 But the practical testing is hoped that the less flattering ones
presented here would turn out to be
6
See Ledivina V. Carifio and Raul P. de wrong on closer review of literature.
Guzman, "Negative Bureaucratic Behavior But hypotheses must also be reason-
in the Philippines: The Final Report of the able, and it is hoped that the above
IDRC Philippine Team," August 1978 (mi- are and would remain that way de-
meo). This was the integrating report of a spite the author's mistakes. Such mis-
series, which included contributions by Ma.
Concepcion P. Alfiler, Victoria A. Bautista, takes may be endemic in a broad and
Leonor M. Briones, Jose N. Endriga, and Ri- complex field with poorly defined
zalino C. Vifieza. boundaries like Public Administration,

July-October
PHILIPPINE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 227
PHILIPPINE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION 227
and in a context like the Philippines al comparisons may provide us a
where the widening scope of govern- quasi-experimental framework. With
ment over society has made those more frequent efforts at assessment
boundaries fuzzy. The uniqueness of and integration of what has come to
government institutions is another be known, however, one may be better
essential constraint on the ability to able to refine ideas and overcome
know, although local and internation- some of these constraints.

1982