Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration

ISSN: 2327-6665 (Print) 2327-6673 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rapa20

Strategic performance management in local

governments in the Philippines: work and rating
challenges

Arneil G. Gabriel & Nimfa S. Villaroman

To cite this article: Arneil G. Gabriel & Nimfa S. Villaroman (2019) Strategic performance
management in local governments in the Philippines: work and rating challenges, Asia Pacific
Journal of Public Administration, 41:2, 119-125, DOI: 10.1080/23276665.2019.1631032

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23276665.2019.1631032

Published online: 25 Jun 2019.

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Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration, 2019
Vol. 41, No. 2, 119–125, https://doi.org/10.1080/23276665.2019.1631032

RESEARCH NOTE
Strategic performance management in local governments in the
Philippines: work and rating challenges
Arneil G. Gabriel * and Nimfa S. Villaroman

Department of Public Administration, Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology, Gen.
Tinio Street, Cabanatuan City, 3100, Philippines
(Received 11 March 2018; accepted 25 October 2018)

Since 2012, the Philippine Civil Service Commission has required all local govern-
ments to have a strategic performance management system (SPMS) as a central
element of responsible and effective governance. In response, this note considers
the SPMS experience of local governments in three cities, with a special focus on the
work and rating challenges involved in selected areas of service delivery. It appreci-
ates the nature and significance of the challenges, with insights being provided and
conclusions reached about possible responses to them.
Keywords: local governments; strategic performance management system; perfor-
mance measurement; work challenges; rating challenges; Philippines

Introduction
The implementation of the Local Government Code (1991) in the Philippines resulted in
the devolution of several important functions of the national government to local
governments, including aspects of health services, social welfare, infrastructure, agricul-
ture and the environment (Brillantes, 1998). The devolution of these functions has had
many significant consequences for the structure and operation of local governments,
including increasing over time the demand for strategic performance management as
a tool to ensure appropriate employee contributions to local goal-setting and achievement
(Resurreccion, 2012). Accordingly, in 2012, the Philippine Civil Service Commission
(2012) issued a circular requiring local governments to implement a strategic perfor-
mance management system (SPMS) as a means of managing, assessing and improving
employee performance and, thereby, contributing to the overall performance levels of
local governments (Capadosa, 2013).
Since its adoption in 2012, the SPMS as an instrument of performance management
has faced numerous challenges concerning the work assigned and assessed, the rating of
performance and goal achievement, and various associated matters of interpretation,
reporting and statistical credibility. In response, this note, as part of a larger research
project, addresses selected SPMS experience regarding employee performance in three
cities in the Nueva Ecija province of the Philippines: Cabanatuan, San Jose and Palayan.
The focus is on the delivery of services in health, social welfare, infrastructure, agricul-
ture and the environment, including reference to the strategic, core and support functions
involved.

*Corresponding author. Email: gabrielarneil77@gmail.com

© 2019 The University of Hong Kong

120 A. G. Gabriel and N. S. Villaroman

Theoretical considerations
The research for the project has been guided by ideas of Locke (1968) on the participa-
tory determination of organisational goals which is intended to motivate employees to
superior performance and, thus, achieve the goals set. Recent developments in the study
and practice of public administration have comprised considerable thinking and action
about the way organisational performance is managed and measured (Bouckaert &
Halligan, 2008; Haque, 1998; van Dooren, Bouckaert, & Halligan, 2015). Personnel
performance is gauged by how employees contribute to the realisation of both tangible
and intangible goals. The emphasis on individual performance recognises that its mea-
surement is a key factor in determining the success or failure of organisations (Adriano &
Estimada, 2014). The types and results of measurement provide potential benefits to
organisations, including the possibility of realigning the activities and behaviour of
employees in accordance with organisational expectations and objectives. They can
improve the capacity of an organisation by sharpening the focus of employees on the
achievement of organisational missions and visions (Micheli & Manzoni, 2010; Pulakos,
2004, 2009).
As an instrument of organisational performance management and measurement,
a SPMS is variously considered to be an exact, or not so exact, means of performance
evaluation in terms of its significance and value in determining the actual performance of
employees (Capadosa, 2013; Davies, 1999; Pulakos, 2004; Resurreccion, 2012). It was
designed to ensure that employees achieve organisational targets in ways that align with
an organisation’s strategic plans and programmes. It seeks to meet its design expectations
by concentrating on employee performance related to organisational functions, objectives
and goals (Ablaña, Isidro, & Cabrera, 2015).
A SPMS addresses the collective performance of employees within the various
operating units of an organisation, on the understanding that such performance is at
least one indicator of the performance of the whole organisation. In doing so, it
determines the extent to which individual employee goals are aligned to the organisa-
tion’s goals and are able to be assessed accordingly through performance measurement
arrangements. This is consistent with the ultimate measure of each employee’s produc-
tivity and contribution being related to the overall performance and success of the
organisation (Ablaña, Isidro, & Cabrera, 2015).

Research design and methodology

The research for the project has employed an exploratory and descriptive design based on
desktop and interview methodology. It has required the support of the local governments
in the three cities studied, especially regarding access to pertinent performance evalua-
tion reports. It has also required the cooperation of employees of the local governments
as willing interviewees.
Documentary data have been obtained from the submitted employee performance
contribution reports and office performance contribution reports filed with the human
resource management offices of the three local governments. Of particular interest are
the employees’ ratings of the performance of their functions as a whole, along with their
more specific ratings of the performance of their functions distinguished as strategic,
core and support. The overall and specific ratings alike concern the delivery of services
in health, social welfare, infrastructure, agriculture and the environment in terms of
quantity, timeliness and efficiency. They involve a 5-point scale set by the Philippine
 Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration 121

Civil Service Commission (2012): outstanding (4.75–5.00), very satisfactory

(3.75–4.74), satisfactory (3.00–3.74), unsatisfactory (2.01–2.99), and poor (0–2.00).
The documentary data have been complemented by interviews with a total of 63
employees in the three local governments. The interviewees comprised 18 department
heads (five, seven and six, respectively, including the HRM officers, in the three
organisations) and 45 other employees (15 in each of the organisations). The interviews
addressed problems encountered in, and affecting, the delivery of services and the
accomplishment of performance targets; the reactions to the identified problems, includ-
ing by supervisors and other superiors; and the possible solutions to the problems with
the aim of improving service performance and delivery.
The documentary data and interview responses complement one another in indicating
the nature and significance of the SPMS in practice. Together, they provide valuable
bases on which to explore and reach some conclusions about the SPMS and its utility in
local governments.

Challenges in need of concerted responses

Problems highlighted by the interviewees and the data on performance ratings pose
several challenges to which the local governments, along with the national government,
need to respond quite comprehensively if the SPMS is to be effective. The challenges
addressed here are work-related with a direct impact on performance, and rating-related
in the form of data validity and functional distinctions.

Work challenges
Interviewees referred to several problems that are regularly encountered in their work.
The problems involve such matters as the nature and extent of target-setting action, the
availability and use of equipment and other essential goods, the lack of staff in areas of
immediate relevance to their functions, and the climatic and related calamities which are
frequent occurrences. All of the problems give rise to specific challenges inherent in their
limiting the ability of employees to do what is expected of them. As such, they have
immediate implications for the meaningfulness and value especially of the performance
measurement feature of the SPMS.
A significant target-related problem in all of the service areas addressed concerns the
quantification of targets and their allocation to employees. There is no clear policy on the
quantity of targets to be met by assigned individuals and groups at a given time, with
some having more targets than others undertaking similar functions; hence, the prob-
ability of particular aspects of services being delivered is inevitably smaller for those
with many targets than for those whose targets are more limited. Also, employees are not
clear about the processes by which timeliness and efficiency targets are determined and,
more generally, not clear as to how such targets are actually addressed in the SPMS.
Their measurement is seen to be important, but it is not accompanied by appropriate
indicators of their accomplishment.
Because many employees are engaged in field activities within the cities and
surrounding areas, especially in the direct delivery of health, infrastructure and agricul-
ture services, they are very dependent on the availability of adequate transport. They
frequently have to visit suburban and rural areas within the jurisdictions of the cities and,
thus, need to be able to travel to those areas quite quickly and easily. In this respect,
122 A. G. Gabriel and N. S. Villaroman

however, they are often constrained by the limited availability of properly functioning
vehicles. This affects their work quite directly. It is particularly acute and concerning in
relation to the delivery of medicine and medical equipment.
This transportation problem is affected by the detailed processes involved in the
procurement of vehicle parts for the repair and maintenance of vehicles. Similarly, as
a result of such processes underlying the procurement of material for use in infrastructure
projects, there are often long delays in the construction and repair of buildings, roads,
bridges and other facilities.
Procurement and related budgetary problems also persist regarding the purchasing of
essential medicine and vaccines. Health care workers are very concerned about, and have
their work significantly constrained by, the lack of medicine available to meet individual
and community needs.
Staff shortages in most of the functional areas are another problem with important
performance implications. In the delivery of social welfare services, for example,
inadequate numbers of staff have led to most employees needing to multi-task, with
workloads often becoming so excessive that individual targets can no longer be met. This
has largely resulted from the national government having cascaded various programmes
to local governments, with resourcing and performance issues having been given little, or
no, serious thought and attention.
Most, if not all, of the problems encountered are essentially beyond the control of
employees, while having direct consequences for their ability to perform their functions
and meet their targets. Each of the problems is significant in itself, as well as often
together being compounded by natural calamities, particularly severe typhoons and the
extensive loss of life and damage caused thereby. None of the problems and the
challenges posed by them are appropriately appreciated in the SPMS.
All of the challenges require ongoing, detailed attention. Ideally, some action is
immediately necessary, but is unlikely given significant resource and associated con-
straints. Accordingly, progress is bound to be slow and longer-term, with the perfor-
mance of employees continuing to be negatively affected by work constraints whatever
the requirements of the SPMS.

Rating challenges
By contrast to the work challenges, the challenges concerning the performance-
rating element of the SPMS are able to be addressed in the short term. They involve
an appreciation of particular shortcomings in the rating arrangements, which are
apparent from the performance evaluation reports in the local governments and
confirmed by responses of interviewees. They include the conduct of individual
performance assessments and the classification of functions as strategic, core and
support.
Employees are expected to rate their own performances often in relation to as many
as 40 specific services in their respective areas of health, social welfare, infrastructure,
agriculture and the environment. Some of the services are directly interrelated to one
another, while others are not; but no guidance is provided on these matters. Also, it is
normally not clear how, and to what extent, the services are actually related to the goals
of the work areas being evaluated and those of the local governments as a whole. This
means that, in the absence of some form of meaningful service clustering and service-
goal alignment, many of the performance assessments have limited value. They are
 Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration 123

inadequate as means of fostering visible benefits in relation to performance planning and

performance development in pursuit of an enhanced achievement of service results
The scope, demands and likely responses regarding the performance assessments
have inevitably led to most employees scoring their performances as outstanding or very
satisfactory, for all services delivered as well as functionally as strategic, core and
support. This has been possible largely because of the personal nature of the assessments,
with the heads of offices being the only other people involved in the process. There is no
provision for some form of external assessment and/or validation. Accordingly, cases of
over-rating, and also the omission of responses to particular services, are never checked
effectively, with no reliable information being available on actual performances and the
reasons why there are potentially significant gaps in the evaluations.
A broad distinction is made between strategic, core and support functions, but
without any clarity as to what kinds of services fit into each of these categories.
Services as support functions are largely, but not consistently, considered to be admin-
istrative in nature involving, for example, information and communications management,
report generation and management, and attendance at meetings and seminars. This
response regarding support functions is not accompanied by any degree of certainty in
relation to services as strategic or core functions. This leads to duplication and over-
lapping in assessments, as well as the non-assessment of services which employees are
unable to distinguish functionally.
Some employees appreciate the significance of strategic functions requiring inno-
vativeness and creativity and, accordingly, consider their work on special programmes
and projects to be strategic; while others view the performance of episodic response
services in times of disastrous climatic, health and other circumstances to be strategic
on the grounds that such services are occasional and not part of their ongoing core
functions. Others, too, consider such activities as the completion of their evaluation
reports and various other evaluations to be strategic, without any reference being made
to how such reports might be used strategically to improve individual and organisa-
tional performance.
Work on special programmes and projects can be strategic or core, depending
particularly on the alignment of such work with the main functions of the work areas
to which assessments relate. This is also the case with aspects of disaster management, as
affected by the extent to which it is central to the continuous service focus of work areas.
These examples contrast with the completion, for example, of personal evaluation
reports, which has support significance much more than core or strategic significance,
unless evaluation results as a whole are used very effectively to improve and manage the
ways in which core functions are allocated and performed within the organisation.
The challenges posed by these rating shortcomings are all open to some form of
immediate response. Positive action can be taken to cluster services and to address
whether or not a meaningful distinction can, and should, be made between strategic,
core and support functions. Also, an external review arrangement could quite easily be
put in place to check and validate performance assessments.

Concluding comments
The performance of local governments is directly dependent on the contribution of
individual employees, whose performance is measured using the SPMS as required by
the Philippine Civil Service Commission. The SPMS continues to face significant work
124 A. G. Gabriel and N. S. Villaroman

and rating challenges. The work challenges involve target related and logistical support
matters which limit the ability of employees to achieve their work goals, while the rating
challenges concern the conduct of performance assessments and the problematic classi-
fication of functions as strategic, core and support. Action is essential to meet the
challenges and, thereby, reduce the incongruence between the SPMS and the actual
work and rating environment of local governments.

Acknowledgements
The valuable contribution of the local governments and interviewees to the research for this note is
gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID
Arneil G. Gabriel http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6220-8884

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