Review of Development

Work

Council for People’s Development

Development Work
 Development work as a response to the
conditions and underdevelopment of a
country:
 Neocolonial control by foreign interests of the

country’s political and economic life

 Monopoly of power by the local elite;

traditional rule of oligarchies

 Persistence of a backward and unjust social

structures that sustain Filipino’s poverty

Evolution of development
work
Policies on National Development
 Official policy for national development has
been based largely on concepts and
approaches borrowed from Western Nations
 Bias for Western development models
Structuralism as a critique of the
modernization theory
Development Policies and the Elite
 Development policies oriented toward the
priorities of the local elite
TRAIN: “government’s biggest Christmas and New Year’s gift”
to whom…?Senators, Representatives, Cabinet
members
SG 31@P198,168 monthly
P72,470 more per year

Senate President President Speaker of the House

SG 32@P233,857 SG 33@P289,401 SG 32@P233,857
monthly monthly monthly
P70,472 more per P54,192 more per P70,472 more per
year year year
After WWII: Development as
compassion/charity
 After World War 11, when independence was
granted to the Philippines, Development
efforts were patterned after Western
counterparts
 Assisting poor communities motivated by

charity and compassion, rather than

catalyzing for development
 Dole-out; community and poor as passive

recipients of assistance
1950s: The Community Development
Approach
 Community development introduced by European
colonial powers
 Harnessing the contribution of the masses in support

of government objectives:
 Facilitate control of depressed areas;
 Persuade the masses to conform to government

policies; and
 Institutionalize a system of patronage

 Assumption: CD work in colonies is necessary to

prepare the local government to implement tasks after
the independence
1950s: The Community Development
Approach
 CD concept was popularized in the
Philippines by the US government, through
the US Agency on International Development
 CD used by the Magsaysay government as a

comprehensive anti-insurgency
Why is there an armed revolution going on in the
Philippines?
How did Community
Development work evolved
during the 50s, 60s, 70s, 90s,
2000 and the present?
 Early CD practice emphasized involvement of
the people in implementation through
contribution of labor
 To make beneficiaries feel they own the

project
 But the people are not decisive participants in

the formulation or management

 Critical control of the project are mostly

relegated to the “experts”

CD and counter-insurgency
 Techniques evolved from the practice of CD
were refined by many organization that later
became NGOs
 The main source of insights came from the

Presidential Assistant on Community

Development (PACD)
 The PACD’s principal funding sources were

the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and

USAID
The PACD
 Role was to organize the barrios and
coordinate the delivery of basic services

 PACD is the forerunner of today’s DILG

1960s
 Expansion of private organizations involved
in different aspects of development
 These organizations has acquired the title

‘NGO’
 NGOs filled the vacuum of social

responsibility, because of government’s

neglect
 Mostly delivery of social services
 Organizing merely to prepare the poor to

receive services
Growth of NGO
 Stimulated by the widely accepted view that
Philippines is in chronic state of socio-economic
emergency
 Though this is true, development proponents did not

deal with the analysis of the roots of

underdevelopment
 Tackling the symptom rather than the cause

 Emergency assistance, which is linked to foreign

government grants and soft-loan arrangements

 Food aid linked to a commodity loan requiring flour,

cotton and other imports

 Heavy dependence on foreign aid
Late 1060s to early 1970s
 NGOs and foundations serving as tax shelters
for big businesses
 Entreprenurial skills
 Provision of seed capital
 Development solutions not tackling the roots

of the problem
CD as addressing the inequitable
distribution of wealth
 Mass movement, through People’s Organizations
(POs), consistently made efforts to make
fundamental changes in the Philippine society
 Means of the mass movement to address unequal

structures range from trade union building to

armed rebellion
 Growth of social consciousness; conflict of class

interests; oppressed vs. the oppressor

 Realization: development work must serve the

interest of the masses and not the elite minority

Militant tradition of the mass
movement: Martial Law
 Political repression
 Street militancy
 First Quarter Storm
 Integration of development workers into the

mass movement
CD during Martial Law
 POs engaged in conscientization and community
organizing
 Organizing people for political and socio-
economic purposes
 Cooperatives, communal farms
 Many development workers were killed and PO
infrastructures destroyed due to military
operations

 Many NGOs lead to the overthrow of the Marcos

dictatorship
80s
 NGOs engaged in multi-sectoral activities
(e.g. health, education. Science and
technology, fisher, urban poor, women)
 Networks of PO
 Institutions like universities and the church

have broadened their service through

engagement in development work
 To collaborate or not to
collaborate with the government?
Conclusions
 Rhetorics of development work are being
used by the minority elite
 Self-reliance, participation, empowerment,

etc.
Conclusions
 A ‘new’ or ‘proper’ civil society activism- with
a liberal agenda start to gain political
relevance at the expense of grassroots,
radical movements
Conclusions
Resistance vs. well-mannered engagement
 Many NGOs impose disempowering analysis

of poverty rather than heightening people’s

awareness on the underlying cases of
underdevelopment
Conclusions
 The potential of NGOs and POs to lobby and
campaign for socio-economic demands has
largely been untapped
 Development projects are the result of

community organizing and social education

efforts
Conclusions
 Efforts at providing POs with comprehensive
training on management skills have been
inadequate
 The principal assets of the NGOs are their

ability to work closely with people. They

should be steadfast in maintaining their
development principles
References
 Council for People’s Development. 1990. Review of Development Wo
rk
 http://www.lewishistoricalsociety.com/wiki/tiki-read_article.php?arti
cleId=72
 http://www.slideshare.net/no2mininginpalawan/extractive-industry
-and-the-church-in-the-philippines