For good governance of the Philippines

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GIVEN the governance advocacy landscape, where four governance institutes have already been set up and are working to promote governance principles and practices at all levels, it should now be possible to consider a workable architecture for the good governance of the country. Such architecture, however, would require close coordination and synchronization between these different institutes. In order to secure these, the following need to be prudently taken into account in actual practice:

The autonomy and independence of each of the four institutes would need to be respected and secured. It is best that at the enterprise level, both ICD and Institute for Solidarity in Asia stick to their knitting: Institute of Corporate Directors serving both private and public enterprises in the corporate sector; and ISA serving both national government agencies and local government units in the government sector.

As enterprises start putting in the essential governance elements such as those specified in the performance governance system, and as they start delivering breakthrough, transformative results as a consequence, they launch outreach programs, especially in family governance (promoting solidarity and team work) and in school governance (institutionalizing and sustaining alliances as well as substantiating social responsibility).

The enterprises which do so may well be introduced into the governance programs of CFA (for family advancement) and of CSG (for school governance).

Mutual support and free exchange of learned best governance practices would need to be secured and arranged for, through their common promotion of personal governance.

All four governance advocacies seek to bring governance down to the individual level; and through the Center for Excellence in Governance (CEG), which they have jointly established, they commit to joint development of personal governance practices, which can be promoted in the family, through schools, and in every type of enterprise.

At the individual level, in addition to promoting personal development through the effective use of personal scorecards, covering all key facets of personal life, individuals are also prodded – and guided – towards greater and deeper involvement in national governance.

Indeed, all four governance advocacies through the Center for Excel- lence in Governance work closely together so that the governance discipline is applied to national affairs of the Philippines (from long-term visioning, transformation road map, and performance scorecards).

All four governance institutes provide a joint framework and mechanism by which individuals – as responsible citizens – can actively and effectively participate in the good governance initiative for the Philippines as a nation and as a people.

In this regard, the four governance advocacies present an alternative architecture to national governance. Instead of the usual paradigm where almost everyone expects governance initiatives to be led and dictated from the very top, a new paradigm is proposed where governance is actively initiated at the grassroots, involving individuals who are building themselves up as anchors and advocates for PH governance; indeed, they seek through responsible citizenship to transform themselves into the ultimate governance assets of the nation.

Under the old paradigm, far too much weight was lodged on a central personality, i.e. the President of the Republic.

Without in any way downgrading the responsibility of the Presidency, under the new paradigm, weight is spread among as many individual Filipinos as possible, who seek to become responsible citizens.

Of equal importance is the weight given to micro governance units such as families and schools as well as to more macro ones such as corporate enterprises (in both the private and public sector) as well as government enterprises (i.e. NGA s and LGUs).

Good governance of the Philippines becomes a shared responsibility on the part of all, especially of enterprises and institutions that seek to transform themselves into “islands of good governance”. Under this architecture, good governance of the Philippines is built from the ground up, instead of dictated from the top down.