Public accountability

1. PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY
“Accountability breeds response-ability”. – Stephen Covey

2. Do you want to be known as a person who never keeps
his word? It is important for you to do what you say you
would do when it comes to achieving your goals.
First and foremost, be accountable to yourself. If you
don't want to follow through with what you say, then why
do you even say it?
Your word is one of the most important things you've got.

3. ACCOUNTABILITY
• Accountability is based on the principle that every person or group is responsible for their actions,
especially when their acts affect the public interest.
• It refers to the answerability or responsibility for one's actions so that systems exist for decision makers in
government, the private sector and civil society organizations to answer to the public, as well as to
institutional stakeholders.
• In its democratic political aspect, decentralization as currently conceived and increasingly practiced in the
international development community has two principal components:
1. Participation - is chiefly concerned with increasing the role of citizens in choosing their local leaders and in
telling those leaders what to do
—in other words, providing inputs into local governance.
2. Accountability - constitutes the other side of the process; it is the degree to which local governments have
to explain or justify what they have done or failed to do.
Improved information about local needs and preferences is one of the theoretical advantages of
decentralization, but there is no guarantee that leaders will actually act on these preferences unless they feel
some sort of accountability to citizens.
Local elections are the most common and powerful form of accountability, but other mechanisms such as
citizen councils can have limited influence.
Accountability can be seen as the validation of participation, in that the test of whether attempts to increase
participation prove successful is the extent to which people can use participation to hold a local government
responsible for its actions.

4. Types of Accountabilities
Accountability comes in two dimensions:
1. Government Workers to Local Officials
• The first type can prove difficult to achieve, for civil servants, particularly professionals in such fields as
health, education, agriculture --the very sectors that are most often decentralized-- often have
considerable incentive to evade control by locally elected officials.
 Such people generally have university training and sophisticated life-style practices hard to maintain in
small towns and villages,
 They have career ambitions that transcend the local level
 They have goals for their children’s education that local schools cannot meet.
 They may well also fear that quality standards for service delivery will suffer if provision is localized.
 Finally, they often find opportunities for corruption greater if they are supervised by distant managers
through long chains of command than if they must report to superiors close at hand.
• For all these reasons, they tend to have strong urges to maintain ties with their parent ministries in the
central government and to resist decentralization initiatives. And understandably, their colleagues at the
center have a parallel interest in maintaining these ties, for they are much concerned about preserving
national standards in service delivery and often about opportunities for venality as well (many corruption
schemes provide for sharing ill-gotten gains upward through bureaucratic channels to the top)

5. 2. Elected Leaders to the Citizenry
• Elections (provided they are free and fair) provide the most obvious accountability, but this is a
rather blunt tool, exercised only at widespread intervals and offering only the broadest citizen
control over government.
• Voters can retain or reject their governors, a decision that can certainly have salutary effects on
governance, but these acts are summary judgments, generally not reactions to particular acts or
omissions.
• And when local elections do revolve around a given issue, such as schools, they necessarily leave
everything else out of the picture. Citizens need more discriminating instruments to enforce
accountability. Fortunately, a number of these are available.
 Political parties can be a powerful tool for accountability when they are established and vigorous at
the local level. They have a built-in incentive to uncover and publicize wrongdoing by the party in
power and to present continuously an alternative set of public policies to the voters.
 Civil society and its precursor social capital enable citizens to articulate their reaction to local
government and to lobby officials to be responsive. These representations generally come through
NGOs (though spontaneous protests can also be considered civil society), which, like political
parties, often have parent organizations at the provincial or national level.

6. If citizens are to hold their government accountable, they must be able to find out
what it is doing.
At the immediate neighborhood level, word of mouth is perhaps sufficient to transmit
such information, but at any higher level some form of media becomes essential. In
some countries, print media can perform this function, but generally their coverage is
minimal outside larger population centers. A feasible substitute in many settings is low-
wattage AM radio, which is highly local, cheap to operate, and can offer news and talk
shows addressing local issues.

7. • Public meetings can be an effective mechanism for encouraging
citizens to express their views and obliging public officials to
answer them. In some settings, such meetings may be little
more than briefing sessions, but in others they can be effective
in getting public officials to defend their actions.

8. • Formal redress procedures
(remedy or compensation for a wrong or grievance)

9. Ethics and Accountability in the Public Service
• It is stated under the 1987 Constitution;
• Article XI - Accountability of Public Officers Section 1. Public office is a public trust.
Public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost
responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficiency, act with patriotism and justice, and lead modest lives.
Under a democracy such as in the Philippines, the people’s fundamental faith in the integrity of
political institutions is what holds the system together even under the most difficult times.
• Foster (1981) states, as the public becomes better educated, they also become more aware, more
demanding, less understanding and less willing to accept average performance.
• Republic Act No. 3019 Section 1 It is the policy of the Philippine Government, in line with the
principle that a public office is a public trust, to repress certain acts of public officer and private
persons alike which constitute graft and corrupt practices which may lead thereto.

10. Ethics in public administration suffers from the absence of a theoretical framework to supply focus,
definition, background, and a common frame of reference for the research and practice of ethical
administration. No paradigm presently exists to provide a shared understanding of what “ethics” means
when applied to the field of public administration.
Accountability is a fundamental but underdeveloped concept in public administration. Scholars and
practitioners freely use the term to refer to answerability for one's actions or behavior. Administrators
and agencies are accountable to the extent that they are required to answer for their actions.
Public administration accountability takes a variety of forms.
The focus here is on four alternative systems of public accountability, each based on variations
involving two critical factors:
(1) whether the ability to define and control expectations is held by some specified entity inside or
outside the agency; and
(2) the degree of control that entity is given over defining those agency's expectations.

11. The interplay of these two dimensions generates the four types of
accountability systems illustrated in Figure 1.
FIGURE 1
Types of Accountability Systems
Degree of Control Over Agency
Actions
Source of Agency Control
Internal External
High Bureaucratic Legal
Low Professional Political

12. Regarding the first dimension, the management of agency expectations through accountability
mechanisms calls for the establishment of some authoritative source of control. Internal sources of
control rely on the authority inherent in either formal hierarchical relationships or informal social
relationships within the agency. External sources of control reflect a similar distinction, for their
authority can be derived from either formalized arrangement set forth in laws or legal contracts or the
informal exercise of power by interests located outside the agency.
A second ingredient in any accountability system is the degree of control over agency choices and
operations exercised by those sources of control. A high degree of control reflects the controller's
ability to determine both the range and depth of actions which a public agency and its members can
take. A low degree of control, in contrast, provides for considerable discretion on the part of agency
operatives.

15. Table 1
Relationships Within Accountability Systems
Type of Accountability System Analogous Relationship
(Controller/Administrator)
Basis Relationship
Bureaucratic Superior/subordinate Supervision
Legal Lawmaker/law executor Principal/agent Fiduciary
Professional Layperson/expert Deference to expertise
Political Constituent/representative Responsiveness to constituents

16. bureaucratic system - expectations are managed through a hierarchical
arrangement based on supervisory relationships;
• The bureaucracy is held accountable by the president, who ensures
that bureaucrats follow the mandate of the executive branch; by
Congress, which investigates and legislates over the bureaucracy; and
by the courts, which ensure that the bureaucracy follows the law.
• Common examples of bureaucracy include government agencies,
large corporations, and the military. Each of these organizations has a
hierarchical structure, division of labor, written rules and regulations,
and formalized decision-making..
• Tax collectors, government accountants, police officers, fire fighters,
and military personnel

17. legal accountability system manages agency
expectations through a contractual relationship;
• What does it mean to be held legally accountable?
• If you are accountable to someone for something that you do, you are
responsible for it and must be prepared to justify your actions to that
person.
• example:
Legal accountability involves nurses and midwives being responsible for
ensuring they have appropriate professional indemnity insurance, as
patients have a right to expect them to hold this insurance in case there
is a substantiated claim of professional negligence.

18. professional system relies on deference to
expertise;
• Accountability means being answerable for the decisions made in the
course of one's professional practice.
• Be professional and accountable in all your work. Keep your practice
up to date and informed by developments in legislation, local and
national guidance and research. Maintain high standards to protect
yourself, your colleagues and the people with whom you work.
• example:
Standing up for what's right in the workplace is a sign of accountability.
Being accountable to yourself and those you work with means sharing
your opinions and working to find a solution when something isn't
right.

19. political accountability system promotes responsiveness to
constituents as the central means of managing the multiple
expectations.
• political accountability system promotes responsiveness to
constituents as the central means of managing the multiple
expectations.
• example: when a politician makes choices on behalf of the
people and the people have the ability to reward or sanction the
politician. In representative democracies citizens delegate
power to elected officials through periodic elections in order to
represent or act in their interest.

20. Accountability of Public officers
• Decision-makers in government, the private sector and civil society organizations are accountable to the public, as well
as to institutional stakeholders. This accountability differs depending on the organization and whether the decision is
internal or external to an organization.
• Accountability is a key requirement of good governance. Not only governmental institutions but also the private sector
and civil society organizations must be accountable to the public and to their institutional stakeholders. Who is
accountable to whom varies depending on whether decisions or actions taken are internal or external to an organization
or institution? In general, an organization or an institution is accountable to those who will be affected by its decisions or
actions. Accountability cannot be enforced without transparency and the rule of law.
 Accountability is imperative to make public officials answerable for government behavior and responsive to the entity
from which they derive their authority.
 This may be achieved differently in different countries or political structures, depending on the history, cultural milieu,
and value systems involved.
 also means establishing criteria to measure the performance of public officials, as well as oversight mechanisms to
ensure that standards are met.
 The litmus test is whether private actors in the economy have procedurally simple and swift recourse for redress of
unfair actions or incompetence of the executive authority.
 Lack of accountability tends in time to reduce the state’s credibility as an economic partner. It undermines the
capacity of governments to sustain the long-term business confidence essential for growth-enhancing private sector
investment. Looked at from this angle, accountability can help reduce sovereign risk.

21. The canon of public service in the Philippine government is anchored on
Section 1, Article XI of the 1987 Constitution that states, public office
is a public trust. Public officers and employees must, at all times, be
accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility,
integrity, loyalty, and efficiency; act with patriotism and justice, and lead
modest lives. The same law that laid out policies on the accountability of
public service.
PUBLIC OFFICE
The right, authority, and duty created and conferred by law which, for a
given period either fixed by law or enduring at the pleasure of the
appointing power, an individual is invested with some portion of the
sovereign functions of the government to be exercised by him for the
benefit of the public.

22. PUBLIC OFFICER
An individual that is so invested. Nature of public office. A
public office is a public trust. It is not a property.
EMPLOYEE
Generally referred to a person in public service. Any
person in the service of the government or any of its
agencies, divisions, subdivisions or instrumentalities.
OFFICER
A. As distinguished from clerk or employee. It refers to
those officials whose duties not being of a clerical or
manual nature, involve the exercise of discretion in the
performance of the functions of government.
B. When used with reference to a person with authority to
do a particular act or perform a particular function.

23. Impeachment
- a method or national inquest into the conduct of public men.
- It is essentially in the nature of a criminal prosecution before a quasi-political
court, instituted by a written accusation called "articles of impeachment," upon a
charge of the commission of a crime or some official misconduct or neglect.
- Its purpose is to protect the people from official delinquencies or malfeasances
(an act that is illegal and causes physical or monetary harm to someone else)
- It is, therefore, primarily intended for the protection of the State, not for the
punishment of the offender.
- The penalties attached to impeachment are merely incidental to the primary
intention of protecting the people as a body politic.

24. The following may be removed
from office through an
Impeachment:
Grounds for Impeachment:
 The President
 The Vice-President
 the Members of the Supreme
Court
 the Members of the
Constitutional Commissions
 Ombudsman
 culpable violation of the Constitution
 treason
 bribery
 graft and corruption
 other high crimes
 betrayal of public trust.
All other public officer and employees may be removed from office as provided by law, but not by impeachment.

25. Procedure of Impeachment
1. To start an impeachment, there should be a verified complaint filed against
the impeachable officer.
2. When the Senate sits in impeachment cases, its members are required to be
under oath or affirmation. This is because when the Senate tries an
impeachment case, it sits as a court of justice rather than as a lawmaking
body. When the President of the Philippines is on trial, the Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court shall preside but shall not vote.
3. To convict an officer, the concurrence of at least 2/3 all of the members of the
Senate is necessary. Moreover, his guilt must be established beyond
reasonable doubt as in a criminal proceeding. If the necessary vote is not
obtained, the judgement shall be an acquittal. The special majority vote is a
safeguard against false conviction.

26. The anti-graft court known as the Sandiganbayan
Under the 1973 Constitution, the Batasang Pambansa
was directed to create a special court to be known as
Sandiganbayan. This court "shall have jurisdiction over
civil and criminal cases involving graft and corrupt
practices and such other offenses committed by public
officers and employees in relation to their offices as may
be determined by law.
Office of the Ombudsman to be known as Tanodbayan
The Constitution directly creates the Office of the
Ombudsman to be known as Tanodbayan categorizing it
like the three Constitutional Commissions as
"independent". The Tanodbayan created under the 1973.
Constitution is now known as Special Prosecutor which
shall continue to function and exercise its powers has now
or hereafter may be provided by law, except those
conferred on the Office of the Ombudsman under Section
13.

27. Composition of Ombudsman
A. Ombudsman known as Tanodbayayn
B. One over all deputy (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao)
Qualification:
(a) Must be a natural-born citizen of the Philippines.
(b) Must be at least 40 years at the time of their appointment;
(c) Must be persons with recognized probity and independence
(d) Must be members of the Philippine Bar; and
(e) Must not have been candidates for any elective office in the preceding election.
Term of Office
Their term of office is seven (7) years without reappointment.
Rank and Salary
They are given the rank of Chairman and members of a Constitutional Commission,
respectively, and the same salary which shall not be decreased during their term of office.
- Ombudsman (Php 204,000)
- Deputies (Php 180, 000)