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appointments of people, service administrative including setting up of office of
administrative.
The second one is political, which is devolution, which is further, it is a deeper
kind of decentralization.
The third one is the bureaucratization, which means getting out of government.
Get out of government because government cannot do it. Or maybe, if you let others
do it, including the private sector, they might be able to do it even better. Point, the
government cannot do it alone. Work with the private sector. Work with civil society.
That is a mode of decentralization. This is what I’d like to talk about. When you talk
about decentralization, this is a continual… I will share this, this is something that
we’ve used since… for some time now since 2002, so it’s about more than… close
to 25, 20 years ago. If it’s really decentralization, in the Philippine context, it’s really
continual on one side, it is de-concentration. As you go deeper, it would be
devolution. As you go deeper, it’s a regional autonomy.
Regional, we have two regional governments in the Philippines, in southern
Mindanao, and up in the north. It’s a regional government. But if you want to deepen
decentralization, and we’re right now in the middle of that debate. Let’s try
federalism. Ok, it might be quite controversial. In fact, I’m part of this whole
movement in the Philippines, but that’s been advocating federalism. But I think
decentralization can be further deepen, if we adopt the federal form of government
and if you want to even push it further. It’s independence. All my friends from
Indonesia call it merdeka, autonomy or separate, ok, we’re independence. I said no,
no, don’t be independent because this can be remedied administratively through
federalism. I know because I work in Timor-Leste. Of course, you would say it
doesn’t belong to you, but Timor-Leste separated from Indonesia. And guess what!
We have had a similar problem in the Philippines. In Mindanao, at one point, they
wanted to separate even when we speak right now. They want maximum
independence. So, I tell them, no, don’t separate. This can be addressed to
federalism. So, that is the discourse of decentralization in the Philippines today.
So, right now, dear friends, federalism is something that we’re still talking about.
But as far as devolution is about, we had over 25 years of experience and we have
many lessons learned. So, my point, decentralization can be located in a continuance
from de-concentration, administrative, to devolution, political, regional government, and
then federalism, and I said you can separate.
So, the next slide talks about the advantages and disadvantages of
decentralization. I will not talk about that anymore, since it is in the paper anyway.
But let me just say that the importance of decentralization and devolution, ok?
So, you have decentralization. Devolution is one of that. It’s really to strengthen the
capacities of the local governments. But more important, decentralization and
devolution is to be able to adjust to the needs of the people. Let me tell you that ª£¸²£ª±¡¡²¥¸h¡¢h¢µÈ
many many times, one of my favorite stories, I worked in the Philippines. I was one
