PS 150

Philippine National and Local Administration

LESSON #4a – Philosophy of Public Administration

REFERENCE USED

Ocampo, Romeo B. “Toward a Philosophy of Public Management Education” in Introduction to

Public Administration in the Philippines: A Reader, Victoria A. Bautista et. al, eds.,
Quezon City, UPNCPAG, 2003, pp. 26-37

I. Philosophizing: Reason and Definition

A. Reason (Why philosophize particularly Public Mgt. Educ?)

1. our gov’t and country is in sorry state

2. we need to have clear goals and objectives to guide dev’t
3. philosophy – provides basic ingredient of values needed as beacon for progress of the
science and art of administration
4. strengthen ethic in Philippine Public Service

B. Definition and Differentiation

1. Public Ad (American Thinking)

a. stronger in theory
b. administration can be made into a science
c. scientific study of admin leads to discovery of principles of admin
1) determine goals of economy
2) realize efficiency

2. Public Ad (British Doctrine)

a. explicit orientation to values (distinct though integral element)
b. administration cannot be reduced to science alone; combo of science and ethics
constitutes philosophy of administration
c. philosophical study of administration leads to discovery of scientific principles
and ethical ideas
d. qualitative rather than quantitative kind of efficiency
due to introduction of ethical element by philosophy

3. New Public Administration

a. reorientation to more substantive values such as social equity
b. importance of culture, value commitments and ethics
 4. Philosophical Nature/Discussion
a. not only ethical and moral (or value questions)
b. ontological (being existence), factual (real) or epistemological (nature and origin of
knowledge) issues as well
c. how we know (as against what ought to be known or done)

II. Values

A. Values Formation - urgency of forming appropriate values for Philippine Public Service

1. laws and regulations (previous and recent) – prescribe ethical behavior

2. problems of graft, corruption, misconduct in gov’t and society in past several decades
3. ethics courses – for training and education programs high school, business ethics)

B. Teaching Values

1. ethics – distinct course or integral part of other courses

2. observe, enforce, inculcate learn before teach
3. difficult to handle and tech personal, different standards, beliefs, ways, behavior

III. Politics and Administration

A. Dichotomy of Politics and Administration

1. should be separated within proper limits

2. mutual influence and interpenetration/permeability
- possible; be allowed and upheld with certain limits
3. liberal-democratic politics and gov’t (like PH)
a. simultaneous division and sharing of power
b. Executive, Legislative, Judiciary – separate but each affects others in law making

B. Dynamics/Relations

1. politicians superior to appointive administrators (bureaucracy)

a. politicians – elected and subject to people’s wishes; transient on the public state
b. administrators – appointed
1) to enforce politicians’ will for continuity and stability
2) political neutrality
3) loyalty to any not one party

2. certain standard for both politicians and administrators

a. dualistic view of politics – good/bad } obey law, don’t abuse, power at hand
b. demeanor of administrators } avoid making self serving rules
c. administrators – don’t have the right to substitute own policy judgments for those of
political leaders
 3. lines between politics and administration
a. should be drawn clearly structurally and functionally
b. political appointees VS career promotes i.e. ambassadors
c. bringing own management team: source of own projects
- discontinuity, instability, uncertainty in governance
d. career service – broadened/ better protected
e. leadership structure streamlined but retain power of the President to hire/fire
political executives

IV. Public Administration VS Public Management

A. Public Administration

1. attending to trivial matters of routine, maintenance and support function

2. traditional
3. favored by British
4. evokes spirit of public service – needs of needy VS demands of greedy
5. routine is important not inconsequential – has role to play
6. as art – better/learned in practice than school; skills based
7. as science – use method, empirical research, new models of data analysis,
empirically based (use of methods employing scientific rules/procedures)

B. Public Management

1. development administration, public policy, public affairs

2. implied partially against labor and other lesser members of corporate hierarchy
3. policy analysis (concerned with organizations and institutions) and mgt. of policy making
(provide scientific rigor in decision making role of executives)
4. negotiations, bargaining, series of games played (rules and discussions made indirectly
than directly/back channeling), command and control (thinking, writing, analyzing)
5. (7) S for successful mgt: strategy, structure, system, staff, skills, superordinate goals, style
6. hard VS soft managerial style
a. hard – cold triange (Americans) strategy, structure, system
b. soft – artful elements staff, skills, superordinate goals
7. political will
a. top choices are made and options closed after careful negotiation and deliberation
b. decide, implement and enforce after administrative kinks have been ironed out
 PS 150
Philippine National and Local Administration

LESSON #4b – Dimensions of Public Administration

REFERENCES USED

Carino, Ledivina V. “Contributions of the Perspective of Public Administration” in Introduction

to Public Administration in the Philippines: A Reader, Victoria A. Bautista et. al, eds.,
Quezon City, UPNCPAG, 2003, pp. 20-25.

Ocampo, Romeo B. “Spatial Dimension of Public Administration ” in Introduction to Public

Administration in the Philippines: A Reader, Third Edition, Volume II, Danilo dela Rosa
Reyes et. al, eds., Quezon City, UPNCPAG, 2016, pp. 135-146.

I. Perspective of Public Administration

A. Introduction on Public Administration

1. many people do not have much idea about Public Ad
2. young discipline in the Philippines ~ 1952
3. irony
a. men and women can serve gov’t without it (Public Ad)
b. others in it (Public Ad) have set their sights on non-gov’t careers
4. Public Ad can contribute to both governance & social life in gen. based on its perspective
5. perspective of Public Ad has four (4) dimensions

B. Dimensions of the Perspective of Public Ad

1. Technical Aspect (What It Is) – Nature/Identity

a. at its core – mgt. of gov’t
1) dev’t, deployment and husbanding of human, material and organizational
resources
2) generation and use of policies and strategies for delivery of public service
b. look at gov’t as “a field of business, removed from the hurry and strife of politics”
(Wilson 1957:71)
c. methodology and technique
1) learn from methods of eng’g, business ad and eco.
2) train people through knowledge from political science., sociology and
psychology

2. Problem of Democracy and Accountability (What It Stands For) – Values/Beliefs

a. vision and goal in the accomplishment of the task of admin
b. means as well as ends involved in Public Ad
 c. embodiment of democratic and accountable public service
- not just administer but administer in pursuit of democracy and accountability
with valuation of what is being done
commit to democracy and concomitant values of freedom and justice

3. The Role of People (Whom Does It Serve) – Dynamics, Action, Others/Client, Players
a. the word “public” redefined
b. “public” focus less on the gov’t institution but more on whom it serves
c. not “admin of public” but admin for and increasingly by the people

4. Issue of Indigenization (How Can It Be Effectively Employed) – Application to PH

Setting/Env’t
a. Filipinization of Public Ad
b. Philippine Public Ad rooted in Philippine experience and aspiration
c. clear view and incorporation of Philippine culture and the needs, capacities and
vision of Filipinos for their country

II. Spatial Dimension of Public Administration (SDPA)

A. Introduction

1. SDPA
a. refers primarily to geographic places, area, locations, distances, and other such
spatial elements and features
b. considered by government
1) when determining its jurisdictions, organization, policies, and operations
2) to take better (more discriminating) account of the spatial distribution of
people, problems, and processes over space
2. One can learn more if he/she views organizations and administration as involving spatial
relationships of a non-physical or institutional kind
3. Otherwise, such issues as concerning the following would arise or persist:
a. territorial boundaries (external and internal)
b. area-based organization and specialization
c. distribution of powers, functions, and resources between central and field units (i.e.,
decentralization)
d. horizontal and vertical coordination of functional and area-based entities

B. The Place of Space in Public Administration

1. Territory as basic element of the State (with people, government and sovereignty)
2. Territoriality variable overtime – from small city-state to empires and nation-states
3. Development in the study of Public Ad
a. early on – attention to the significant dev’t of field organizations the need to
reorient from compact geography of Europe to fragmented context of US
b. later – theoretical frameworks on SDPA in interest of basic societal values,
powers and functions of gov’t/social institutions can be divided areally & centrally
 4. Work organization division/aggregation
a. areally – by place/area, purpose, process, clientele and material (area vs function)
b. centrally – concentrated on or deconcentrated from the center in varying degrees
depending on size, prevailing circumstances/natural conditions, state of relevant
technologies, among other factors
5. Decline interest in SPDA
a. Simon attack on Gulick’s one best principle/organization theory
1) changing and dynamic balance contingent on changing circumstances
2) information-communication terms without much thought to
transportation/transmission
b. Riggs – geography as one of many environmental factors not considered in
ecological factors of Public Ad
c. Hutchcroft tried to revive interest in SDPA – alluded only to geography but mainly
concerned with the institutional/organizational dimensions of Public Ad
6. Two aspects of SDPA glossed over
a. effective scope of gov’t has depended on the state of technology and infrastructure
b. dependent also on dominant patterns of spatial development of the country
population, economy, society, and culture

C. Renewed Interest: The Impact of Technology on SDPA

1. role of geography in development and government

2. geography is not immutable but subject to technological and other developments
3. geographic determinism vs technological determinism
a. debate on importance and relevance of geography
b. vis a vis new technologies of information, communication and transportation
c. especially Information Communication Technologies (ICTs)
4. trends
a. “time-space compression”
b. “distanciation”(spatial projection)
c. “distance is dead” (transcendence of institutions)
d. “spaces of place” to “spaces of flows”
e. “network societies” on a global scale
5. globalization effects
a. borders have become more porous
b. nation-states have lost (or shared) their sovereignty with international bodies,
multinational corporations (MNCs), and superpowers
c. (some) localities and regions have assumed new prominence
6. influences on current Public Ad Theory
a. hierarchical organizations are breaking down in favor of horizontal units now better
equipped and network connected with ICT facilities
b. with ICTs enabling freedom from existing structures, time and space no longer pose
significant constraints; thus, borders no longer count as much as before
c. peripatetic (traveling from place to place) leaders can now roam and still maintain
command and control through portable virtual headquarters
 7. challenges to influences/trends
a. hierarchies are unlikely to disappear soon, having been the main mode of
governance, itself “as old as government” (Pierre & Peters, 2000)
b. nation-states have remained crucial players despite the apparent squeeze from
above and below (Rodan, 1998)
c. globalization, technology, and economic development have been uneven and have
had uneven results, favoring some countries, regions, and localities (not to mention
groups) at the expense of others; hence, “localization” has accompanied present-day
globalization
d. the wider effects of technology have been more complex than unilinear and polar,
neither solely in the positive direction as utopian visionaries see them, nor solely in
the negative one of dystopians

D. Uneven Patterns of Development

1. Development disparities have not received as much attention as they deserve in

discussions of SDPA issues (i.e., decentralization)
a. decentralization discussed mostly in institutional dimensions and hardly in
decentralization of development itself
b. discussion should focus on the prevailing spatial patterns of demographic,
economic, social, and cultural development + initial conditions presented by
geography and natural resources
2. Development has assumed diverse spatial patterns, as reflected by the concepts
developed to describe and analyze them (i.e., Marshallian economies, Primate cities,
Megapolitan growth, Industrial dispersion, World cities)
3. Spatial patterns have raised equally diverse questions about appropriate locations,
distances, sizes, shapes, and interrelationships of different places of work, residence,
and leisure and the movement of people, goods, and information.

E. Technology and Space: Information Communication Technologies (ICT) VS Transportation

1. Technologies have helped reshape development and governance spaces
2. Transport technologies and infrastructure have done much to extend the urban, regional,
national, and international channels of movement, networks and nodes of human
settlements, and overall patterns in the environment
3. New ICTs bid fare to do the same and to overtake transport technologies in the process
4. Effects of technology uneven and diverse
a. democratic diffusion and universal access vs digital divide
b. beneficial changes vs unintended/undesirable/inconsistent effects
5. Technological breakthroughs
a. reduction of travel and communication distances and times (satellite, fax, internet)
b. electronic digitalization of data and devices
c. expansion of communication capabilities
d. multimedia convergence
e. informatization – increased automation of production and other activities
f. informating – ability to generate and “harvest” data from operations for purposes of
control, coordination, and decision making
 6. Advances in integrated ICTs have enabled communication of various forms of
information (data, voice, video) to serve as a substitute for the transportation of people,
goods, and information in its older form “telecommuting”, “distant forms of work”
7. Substitution Effects of ICTs
a. have probably played an important part in the decentralization, privatization,
downsizing, and outsourcing strategies of gov’t as well as business firms
b. have also had complementary and other impacts on travel and transportation
c. telecom facilities do
1) focus infrastructure investments and operations in cities
2) result in relative or absolute substitution for physical flows
3) stimulate physical movement and development, just as urban concentration
of telecom facilities stimulates their use
4) enhance the attractiveness, efficiency, and capacity of transport and other
physical networks (road, rail, water, and energy), thus induce more trips
8. new transportation technologies contributed to more intensive and extensive use of
space through travel
9. incorporation of ICTs into transport and logistical systems has pushed their efficiencies
and attractiveness further
10. adverse impacts of new technologies – may be double sided
a. have had both centripetal and centrifugal effects on urban development
b. ICTs reinforce urban concentration yet telework may lengthen distances between
homes and workplaces, non-work trips instead of work-related travel

F. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Passing Review: Sharing the Dilemma

1. development of GIS has reasserted the importance of “where” in the world it belongs
2. reminds and shows people how and why taking geography more seriously lead to
more precise, accurate, discriminating and, hence, more efficacious government,
administration, and even politics
3. 1st Law of Geography – “states that everything is related to everything else, but near
things are more related than distant things”
4. like other ICT-based technologies, GIS has promised to transcend space even while
accentuating its importance through their integration and sharing with increased
connectivity among different organizations, units, and participants
5. GIS can be mired in a sticky process
a. connectivity does not guarantee free data flows
b. data sharing does not happen easily due to cost constraints and propriety tensions
between data producers and users (expensive and time-consuming)
6. like in computerization, the promised democratic diffusion and universal access can
hardly happen in GIS
7. instead of deterritorialization and steering from a distance, GIS has been found to have
“reterritorializing effects” with the reassertion of turf by the participating institution;
“informatization to have had a reinforcing rather than diffusing effect on power
structure”