Philippine Bureaucracy: Bloated and Corrupted

Most bureaucrats see their positions as both a power and a privilege shielded by immunities instead of as a public service that involves accountability.

BY THE CENTER FOR PEOPLE EMPOWERMENT AND GOVERNANCE
Posted by Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 1, February 3-9,2008

Ed San Pedro (not his real name) had served five presidents, from Ferdinand E. Marcos to Gloria M. Arroyo, at the Malacanang press office. A civil service eligible and career man, he became an assistant secretary after more than two decades of unblemished public service. A few years later under the Arroyo presidency, San Pedro was forced to obey the orders of a superior which he thought were irregular and unethical. He was bawled out by the chieftain thus forcing him to resign. He died a few months later. In a tribute at his funeral, his former staff, acquaintances, and a former Cabinet secretary extolled him as being in that rare breed of government men who remain clean till the end.

In the bureaucracy of a government known as one of the most corrupt in the world, there are Ed San Pedros as there are also lowly employees who remain devoted to their work and end their service with just enough retirement pay to last in their twilight years. They watch in quiet indignation as many of their superiors, from top executives, department secretaries, and generals, to local officials loot the government treasury without remorse. Many promising career personnel, proven for their competence and meritorious service, are passed over in promotion as a new administration takes over and puts its political appointees in key positions. Loyalty to political patrons comes first in their placement within the bureaucracy. Then they claim authorship to “accomplishments” even if these are a product of labor by low-salaried career men and civil service employees.

It came as no surprise when Karina C. David, immediate past commissioner of the civil service, recently criticized Mrs. Arroyo for abusing her prerogative on government appointments. Of some 6,000 executive or managerial positions in government, David said, 3,500 were appointed by the president 60 percent of them non-eligible. The office of the president (OP) alone has 53 presidential assistants, all of them political appointees with many holding redundant positions.

Appointments were made apparently not on professionalism and public service but for political reasons or on loyalty to the president. For this reason alone, 4,000 career eligibles were passed over by the non-career presidential appointees.

Bloated bureaucracy

The Arroyo bureaucracy is “bloated with excess officials” and agencies topping the list are the departments of agrarian reform, national defense, environment and natural resources, and interior and local government. In these departments, the number of undersecretaries and assistant secretaries exceeds the limit of five. In fact in many national government agencies (NGAs), bureau and regional directors keep their posts way beyond the legal one-year tenure.

Equally alarming is that 90 former military and police officials are now occupying key government positions.[1]

This abuse of authority, David said, was to blame for the “worsening politicization” and “unprofessional behavior” of the bureaucracy.

Overall, the government bureaucracy has 1.4 million employees and of these, 68 percent are in the NGAs, 25 percent in local governments, and 7 percent in government owned- and –controlled corporations (GOCCs). A 2004 report of the Civil Service Commission (CSC)[2] reveals that the executive office accounted for 95 percent or 951,120 of the total NGA employment. The remaining 5.03 percent was distributed in the judiciary (26,931 or 2.7 percent), constitutional offices (117,606 or 1.76 percent), and the legislature (5,838 or 0.58 percent).

The same CSC report shows that of the total number of employees, 89 percent or 1.3 million were career personnel while 11 percent or 160,000 were hired on qualifications other than merit and fitness, as the law requires.[3] About 64 percent of the non-career personnel are in the local government units (LGUs), 25 percent in the NGAs, and 11 percent in the GOCCs. The report asserts that the non-career personnel are political protégés who failed to meet the qualification standards prescribed for the government positions.

All these only suggest that political patronage was decisive in the appointment of 3,500 non-career officials occupying managerial or executive positions and also of a bigger number of at least 155,000 non-career personnel spread in the rest of the government bureaucracy.