Subsidiarity in Regionalism: A Case Analysis of Cebu Citys Performance in the

Fulfillment of ASEAN MDGs towards Sustainable Development

Mishel Francheska Y. Escao
The increasing role of cities in regional integration has been given more
emphasis in prevailing discourse on smart city-regionalism, which is derived from the
frameworks of Smart Growth and New Regionalism. Such paradigms highlight how
otherwise extreme scales of policy-making, which pertain to the local and regional
levels of governance, are reconciled in collaborative engagements. Smart cityregionalism is seen as a result of the interloping key factors of territoriality at the
regional level and local sectorality. The former is where negotiated collaborative
approaches are set, which flows out of a perceived need to find a more effective scale
for representing, negotiating, and implementing sectoral policy agendas that are
agreed upon at the city level (Herrschel, 2013). This activity therefore produces a
feedback loop between identifying this collaborative policy agenda and the willingness
of actors to immerse in regionalism, as further stipulated by Herrschel.
Decentralization of the Philippines as provided in the Local Government Code of
1991, or RA 7160, gives emphasis on the coordinative and cooperative activities to be
carried out by the Local Government Units (LGUs), as provided in Section Section 2 (a)
of its Basic Principles: It is hereby declared the policy of the State that the territorial
and political subdivisions of the State shall enjoy genuine and meaningful local
autonomy to enable them to attain their fullest development as self-reliant communities
and make them more effective partners in the attainment of national goals., thereby
permitting the engagement of LGUs in international activities that would serve national
interest. Having been considered as one of the forerunners in the promotion of
sustainable development in Southeast Asia (Lim, 2013), and as signatory to the Joint
Declaration on the Attainment of the Millennium Development Goals in ASEAN, it
becomes critical to examine how the Philippines LGUs contribute to the regional
processes. Looking at the case of Cebu City, one of the countrys major metropolitan
areas, this paper examines whether and how the citys agency in promoting the
sustainable development agenda contributes to achieving the ASEAN MDGs within the

framework of smart city-regionalism, particularly with regard to Cebu Citys

collaborative capacity in terms of its initiatives for regional engagement, as well as its
initiatives for sustainable development that address the negotiations that are carried out
at the regional level. It specifically examines opportunities and/or pitfalls of subsidiarity
in

incorporating

development.

cities in

regional

integration

processes towards

sustainable