This document summarizes a research paper on factors that promote or deter popular participation in development programs in the Philippine context. It first defines popular participation as involving communities in planning, implementing, and evaluating development programs. It then provides background on the Philippines and discusses government policies and mechanisms intended to promote participation, such as programs implemented through barangays. The document also identifies factors at the individual, community, and societal levels that can either promote or impede popular participation. It concludes by calling for a search for indigenous Filipino models of participatory development.

1. Factors that Promote or
Deter Popular
Participation in
Development: The
Philippine Experience
By: Laurefel P. Gabales
PA 103
Prof. Jo B. Bitonio

2. Factors that Promote or Deter Popular
Participation in Development
Introduction
Objectives
Methodology
Popular Participation as Defined in Philippine
Researches
The Philippines: A brief backgrounder

3. Factors that Promote or Deter Popular
Participation in Development
Policies and Mechanisms for popular
Participation
Factors that Promote/Impede Popular
Participation
Recommendation: The Search for the
Filipino Participatory Ethic

4. Introduction
Quest for elusive “development”
Economic growth no longer the sole concern
in development
Five Core Concepts of Development
Man as end of development
Delineation of man

5. Introduction
Collective personality of man
Participation
Self-reliance

6. Objectives
Seeks to answer the following question
What has been the country’s experience in
promoting popular participation in the
government’s development programs?
What factors may be identified as facilitating
or obstructing popular participation in
development?

7. Objectives
What recommendations may be
forwarded to stress those that facilitate
and minimize those that impede popular
participation?

8. Objectives
The study has four sections
A brief description of the socioeconomic and
political and historical makeup
Selected government programs and
innovations

9. Objectives
Factors that promote and deter
participation
Recommendations for policy and
institutional changes

10. Methodology
The academe has drawn attention to the
subjects
The government has also caused the
evaluation of existing participatory
mechanisms
Researches have been conducted on
popular participation

11. Popular Participation as Defined in
Philippine Researches
Mass sharing of the benefit of development
Mass contribution to development
Mass involvement in the decision making
process for development

12. Popular Participation as Defined in
Philippine Researches
A process in which the people are directly
and actively involve in the planning and
implementation of rural development
programs and projects
Defining the situation requiring a decision
Choosing the preferred alternatives

13. Popular Participation as Defined in
Philippine Researches
Determining how best tom implement the
decision once it is made
Evaluating the consequences of the action
taken

14. Popular Participation as Defined in
Philippine Researches
The differentiation of the decision making
into planning, implementation and evaluation
process
Conceptualizing the problems
Deciding what is to be done
Implementing the plans and programs
Evaluating the results

15. Popular Participation as Defined in
Philippine Researches
Passive citizen
Involved only as recipient of the service
Completely dependent from external funding
Deprived when personnel for participation
Active citizen


16. Popular Participation as Defined in
Philippine Researches
Involved in the planning, implementation
and evaluation of the program
Program is self supporting in funding
Personnel fielded from community
Midpoint situation
Involved either in implementation only or
in planning and implementation

17. Popular Participation as Defined in
Philippine Researches
Dependent on some combination of internal
and external funding
Manpower fielded jointly by outside agency
and local community

18. The Philippines: A Brief Backgrounder
Self-sustaining unit called barangays
Spanish centralized bureaucracy
Americans promised independence
Japanese occupation
Declared independent by Americans
Martial Law was imposed on 21 Sept 1972
May 1982 election of barangay officials

19. Policies and Mechanisms for popular
Participants
Barangays
Advent of “paticipatory democracy”
A Barangay chairman and six councilors
Administrative channels of government as part
of the delivery of services to the people
Viewed as a possible Filipino alternative to the
western model – Filipino collectivism

20. Policies and Mechanisms for popular
Participants
NEDA and the Development Council
Created from the Integrated Reorganization Plan
which adopted from PD No. 1
Tasked with formulating definite and consistent
long-range and annual economic and social
development plans and programs

21. Policies and Mechanisms for popular
Participants
Assist planning at the regional levels
A development council is a structure
responsible for coordinating the efforts of
agencies and instrumentalities of gov’t
Councils are organized at the regional, city/
municipality and barangay levels
Strongly counterbalanced the RDC’s

22. Policies and Mechanisms for popular
Participants
The Philippine Rural Development Program
Manage by Rural Development Division of
the Bureau of Community Development
Aims to promote the transformation and
development of rural communities
Built on the principle that development is a
government enterprise

23. Policies and Mechanisms for popular
Participants
Primary Health Program
LOI No. 949
Practical approach that recognizes the
interrelationship between health and overall
socioeconomic development
Intersectoral approach in building the
foundation of health

24. Policies and Mechanisms for popular
Participants
Recognized the for:
Active community participation
Good working relationship
Use of indigenous technology
Development of support mechanisms

25. Policies and Mechanisms for popular
Participants
Community based programs
Knows , feels, and accepts responsibility for
community health
Taps and develops its own resources
Primary focus is put by the community on
community problems, resources and actions

26. Factors that Promote/Impede Popular
Participation
The individual level
Analysis would require more empirical test
No longer be a concept in search of
methodology but rather implies that
community may be the methodology
Promoting conditions
Impending conditions

27. Factors that Promote/Impede Popular
Participation
The community
Community structure
Physical dispersion / Communication
networks
Experience in community organizing
Economic status of community
Community leadership selection

28. Factors that Promote/Impede Popular
Participation
Involvement of informal leaders
Leadership style
Emotional cost to community
Manner of fielding community organizers
The government/other sectors
Bureaucratic character / “Technical
expertise”

29. Factors that Promote/Impede Popular
Participation
Measures of performance
Plan approach
Nature of program
Choice of community
Participation
Bureaucratic specialization

30. Factors that Promote/Impede Popular
Participation
The greater society/Societal level
Colonial experience
Poverty
Ineffectiveness of participation as a means of
getting service
Other factors

31. Recommendations: The Search for the
Filipino Participatory Ethic
Society’s historical past
Heavy influence and reliance on western and
foreign models
Utilize an indigenous process of evoking
popular participation
Search for the distinguishing characteristics

32. Reference
Introduction to Public Administration
A Reader 2nd Edition
National College of Public Administration
& Governance
University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City, 2003