Identity Crisis for Public Administration

Jesus B. Pineda

This crisis has been manifested in four areas: The discipline of public administration in the Philippines has been undergoing its version of an ‘identity crisis’ over the past decade (1) the inordinate influence of mostly American public administration theories and concepts upon Philippines public administration has led Filipino academics in the early to mid-1980s to ask the question ‘is there a Philippine public administration? (2) the perceived disconnect between theories of public administration as taught in schools and the realities in the outside world has raised questions of the relevance of the discipline to real world challenges; (3) the continued frustration over the perception that in spite of many public administration and governance reforms, the Philippines continues to be among the more corrupt nations in the region; and (4) the recent fascination of academics in other disciplines, especially economists, that ‘institutions matter’, has led some public administration scholars to argue that their discipline has been arguing precisely the same point since the 1950s. At the level of design and implementation of concrete policies, the services of the College and its staff and faculty have been tapped by government. For instance, expertise of the College has been tapped in the formulation of the Integrated Reorganization Plan (the most far ranging reorganization plan of the government), the Local Government Code, the Metro Manila Development Authority, among significant laws likewise have served as consultants and resource to many national and local officials including the President of the Philippines, Senators, Congressmen, Governors and Mayors all over the country have likewise been seconded to serve as officials in the government hence giving them ‘real world’ experience in the field of Public Administration and contributors include well known international authors in the field of comparative public administration. including Fred Riggs, Robert Stauffer and Harry Friedman.

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The author is Administrative Assistant III at DepEd, Division of City of San

Fernando