Towards Regional Governance: Releasing National

Energies for Sustainable and Equitable

Development:
Philip Camara, February 3, 2010

Last week Kalayaan College and Subsidiarity Movement held a Focused

Group Discussion on the topic of Regional Governance and Fiscal
Subsidiarity (defined as the direct local use of taxes). It was pointed out that
it is ridiculous that the President supervises 200 Local Government Units
(120 cities and 80 provinces) presenting an impossible span of managerial
control. Thus there is neglect allowing warlords to flourish, infrastructure to
be ill-maintained, easy-to-do solutions undone that if done would greatly
improve the welfare of people. Indeed, the dysfunctionality of our national
governance is directly responsible for the fiscal deficit, ineffective spending,
deteriorating social indicators (health, nutrition, education) and it is high
time that a managerial revamp of national governance be instituted.

How is the Philippine’s governance structure organized? Our current

population of 92 million divided over 47,000 barangays or villages means we
have about 2,000 people per village. Villages are supervised by
Municipalities and Cities which are in turn (except for chartered cities)
supervised by Provinces. Today, we have 80 provinces and 120 chartered
cities for a total of 200 LGUs directly supervised by the President.

In 1972, the Regional Development Councils were created by virtue of Letter

of implementation No. 22 pursuant to the implementation of the Integrated
Reorganization Plan of 1972 to operate for the purpose of coordinating plans
and policy of national, regional and local government agencies. After a series
of amendments by four Philippine presidents, the council is now comprised of
the Regional Directors of National Line Agencies (RDNLAs), the elected
Governors and Chartered City Mayors of component LGUs in the Region and
where 25% of the membership is allocated to NGO/PO and business sectoral
representatives. Unfortunately, it has no real power over either the RDNLAs,
nor the component LGU nor over anyone really.

The proposal therefore to improve governance is to activate these Regional

Development Councils and transform them into Regional Development
Authorities or RDAs.
The Philippines has 17 Regions presented below with their corresponding
component LGUs and population:

Region Population No. of

2007 2009 Provinces/Cities
Cordillera Administrative Actual
1,520,74 Estimate
1,583,444 6/2
Region 1 4,545,90 3 4,733,336 4/8
Region 2 3,051,48 6 3,177,302 5/3
Region 3 9,720,98 7 10,121,784 7/14
Region 4-A 2
11,743,1 12,227,286 5/13
Region 4-B 10
2,559,79 2,665,332 5/1
Region 5 5,109,79 1 5,320,478 6/7
Region 6 6,843,64 8 7,125,811 6/16
Region 7 6,398,62 3 6,662,447 4/16
Region 8 3,912,93 8 4,074,269 6/7
Region 9 3,230,09 6 3,363,272 4/5
Region 10 3,952,43 4 4,115,398 5/9
Region 11 4,156,65 7 4,328,034 4/6
Region 12 3,829,08 3 3,986,956 5/5
Region 13 2,293,48 1 2,388,042 5/6
Autonomous Region of 4,120,79 0 4,290,698 6/2
Muslim
Source: National Statistics Office (2007), 5Commission on Audit 2007 Financial Report

From the above, the average Regional Population stands at 5.42M. From the
time the Philippines was “administered” by the Spaniards in 1570 to 300
years later at 1870 our population grew to 5.5 million. Today, that is the
population of one of our 17 Regions. Thus, shifting to Regional Governance
through the creation of RDAs will bring us back to a reasonable span of
governance control and at the same time incorporate the sophistication
required to govern a secondary hierarchical structure. More so, a President
that is unleashed from micro-governance can show their mettle in the
ASEAN, Asian & Global arena to make the Philippines once again the worthy
member of the community of nations.

But what will the RDAs be in charge of managing? It is proposed that the
RDAs will manage all of the Central Government functions that have not
been devolved to the Local Government Units AND supervise the faithful
implementation of all laws that call for Local Government implementation.
We will see the National Government in charge of “steering” and the LGU’s
doing the “rowing”. Correct ordering is a key principle of management
particularly if the desire is to unleash human potential. That is the essence of
applying the principle of Subsidiarity.

Thus, National Policy Direction on Economic Development, Environmental

and Natural Resources, Public Works and Highways, Education and Culture,
Justice, etc. will be set by the National Government through the various
Cabinet secretaries and the President, but the translation to Regional and
Local action plans and budgets will be done by the Regional Development
Authorities. The RDAs can be created at anytime by a visionary President
who wishes to unleash the talent and energies of more Filipinos towards
National Development.

The key shift will simply be that instead of Regional Line Agencies reporting
to their National Counterparts, they will now be accountable to the RDAs.
The Regional Line Agencies will now take their cues, and their budgets will
now be aligned towards the reconciled plans and initiatives of the RDA
members.

This Table shows the 2007 level of Regional Expenditures of the National
Government spent through the Regional Line Agencies:

Central
Government
P000 LGUs Total Expenditure Total
Income for the Regional
2007 Regions Expenditure
2007
234,682,57 335,893,04 570,575,61
Grand Total 2.36 4.38 6.74
National Capital 46,778,40 137,531,99 184,310,39
Region* 1.48 5.00 6.48
11,410,05 14,371,24 25,781,30
Region 1 9.53 8.27 7.80
6,223,71 7,499,51 13,723,22
CAR 0.33 3.73 4.06
9,160,56 10,132,75 19,293,32
Region 2 9.36 8.94 8.30
20,888,92 21,590,01 42,478,93
Region 3 0.59 3.29 3.88
35,866,59 27,646,93 63,513,52
Region 4 0.31 2.60 2.91
10,993,97 15,101,34 26,095,31
Region 5 3.34 1.54 4.88
16,679,84 18,419,95 35,099,79
Region 6 0.96 4.59 5.55
Region 7 15,555,45 14,027,68 29,583,13
 5.12 0.75 5.87
8,687,32 12,732,96 21,420,28
Region 8 1.73 1.79 3.52
7,781,53 9,821,77 17,603,30
Region 9 1.08 3.23 4.31
11,300,40 11,512,49 22,812,89
Region 10 6.23 0.21 6.44
10,170,59 10,980,18 21,150,77
Region 11 6.06 3.03 9.09
8,285,24 8,623,77 16,909,02
Region 12 9.49 7.18 6.67
7,545,24 7,146,53 14,691,78
Region 13 5.07 7.05 2.12
7,354,70 8,753,88 16,108,58
ARMM 1.68 3.18 4.86
Source: Figures from Commission on Audit 2007 Financial Reports
*NCR NG Expenditure was estimated

Thus, imagine the Filipino potential that will be unleashed when Regional
Line Agency functions, talents and budgets are now programmed by
Regional Development players AND aligning these budgets with the budgets
of the component LGUs. (note: even congressional pork barrel can be
released or programmed from Regional budgets making their project choices
better aligned with Regional developments and at the same time, more
accountable).

A typical RDA will have the following composition:

• 75% from government sector which includes elected officials like

Governor, Mayor, etc. and regional line agencies like the DPWH, DOH,
Dep’t of Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources, Dep’t of
Finance, etc.
• 25% is private sector which includes NGOs, POs, and other private
sectors.

Note that the RDA will be beyond the control and sphere of influence of any
one or two existing political warlords of component cities and provinces as
they would be greatly outnumbered and none of the power handles (police,
control over budgets) will be under their discretion. In fact, on the contrary,
these local warlords will see their powers clipped dramatically allowing more
rationale development initiatives to flourish even at the sub-regional level.
In short, it is proposed that the RDAs will receive Presidential authorization to
manage, on its behalf, the following functions:

1. Directly Supervise BIR Agencies in area through the Regional office

of the Department of Finance
2. Directly Retain Revenue Collections within the Internal Revenue
Allotment
3. Strictly Enforce People’s Participation and “bottom-up” Planning of
the Local Government Code
4. Enforce E-Commerce Law having all Local Government Units (LGUs)
display in LGU websites: budgets / expense
5. Directly Supervise all PNP units
6. Ensure Preparation of Land Use and Sustainable Development Plans
7. Directly Supervise Regional Line Agencies

Given the deteriorating state of our nation and its component families, we
urgently need bold “out-of-box” approaches to improve governance for the
sake of our national pride and dignity. The next president can choose this
path of Regional Governance and genuine autonomy to unleash the creative
energies and talents of all Filipinos in a massive “bottom – up” development
virtuous cycle.