MANILA, Philippines – More road repairs are scheduled along major roads in Metro Manila this coming weekend, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) announced Thursday. Read more.

On Friday March 30, more than 200 local and central government officials, NGOs, academics and donor representatives met in Manila for the Public Governance Forum of the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA). This CIPE-sponsored event highlighted the remarkable accomplishments in public governance made by cities and central government agencies that are working with ISA.

There are now more than 40 cities across the Philippines, along with several provinces and thirteen central government agencies, that have adopted ISA’s Performance Governance System (PGS). CIPE has worked with ISA since 2004 to develop and promote the PGS as a public governance reform tool in the Philippines. Read more.

DIPOLOG CITY, Feb. 9 (PIA) – Certain offices of the city government here have succeeded in going up the ladders of the Performance Governance System (PGS) toward good governance.

In a recent validation conducted on the different offices by the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA), the City Social Welfare and Development Office (CSWDO), City Agriculturist’s Office (CAO), City General Services Office (CGSO), City Planning and Development Office (CPDO), City Treasurer’s Office (CTO), City Health Office (CHO) and City Engineering Office (CEO) have inched two notches up, garnering the PGS compliance stage. These offices were able to come up with their respective balanced scorecards that lay down the bases for evaluating their performance.

The offices that hurdled the PGS initiation stage were the Office of the City Civil Registrar (OCCR), City Information Office (CIO), City Cooperative Office (CCO), City Population Office (CPO), City Tourism Office (CTO), Office of the Building Office (OBO), City Administrator’s Office (CAO) Personnel Services Division (PSD) and the Office of the City Accountant (OCA). Read more.

MANILA, Philippines — The first steps on the Performance Governance System (PGS) pathway look daunting and mechanical. At first glance, they look like impossibly big strides towards a tall, almost insurmountable mountain. Moreover, unless there is an attempt at getting the logic behind the required steps, they begin to look like a checklist of “things to do” just for the sake of getting the required exercise done.

It is time to remove the “mystery” out of the key steps that need to be taken for initiation into the PGS.

The PGS journey asks for a clear appreciation of the distance the journey must cover over a clearly agreed time frame. That distance is huge because a transformation is being sought; and transformation entails going from where we are to where we can be (and this depends on where we aspire to be by a certain target date in the rather distant future). Since we are talking about transforming ourselves, then it is essential that we first know who we are (as shaped by our values), and what we do (our mission), before dreaming of what we wish to accomplish within a given time frame (our vision). This is what the governance charter clarifies for us: it gives us a deep sense of direction, which has to be clear and well defined. Read more.

The founding fathers of the Balanced Scorecard offer insight into how it can be used to maximise opportunities in the future.

We introduced the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in a January 1992 Harvard Business Review article and a 1996 book, now translated into 24 languages. Before speculating about the future, we want to anchor everyone on where the BSC is today since many, while familiar with the foundational ideas, may not have tracked developments over the past 20 years. We introduced the BSC to improve corporate performance measurement by balancing the lagging metrics of financial performance with nonfinancial metrics – customers, processes, people, systems and culture – that we believed drove future performance. Our fifth and most recent book, The Execution Premium (2008), synthesises the work of the previous 15 years and shows how the BSC has now become the number one management system for helping organisations execute their strategies.

We have helped create a new body of knowledge for strategy execution, one that can be implemented by a new set of professionals operating within what we call an “office of strategy management”. Many organisations, throughout the private, non-profit and public sectors, can benefit simply by implementing this proven strategy execution system. Read more.

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Who is having the last laugh now?

The joke going around the world in 1986 was that the Philippines had no money but it had a ministry of finance.

This is no longer true, the finance secretary during the Corazon Aquino administration, Jesus Estanislao, said here Saturday during observance rites of the 26th anniversary of the People Power Revolution.

The Philippines is now a creditor, rather than a debtor, nation, said Estanislao. 
Read more.

CAMP FLORENDO, La Union — Pangasinan 2nd District Rep. Leopoldo Bataoil is optimistic the PNP Patrol Plan 2030, “Peace And Order Agenda For Transformation and Upholding of the Rule of Law,” will bring change to the PNP.

Bataoil spoke during the closing ceremony of a three-day seminar workshop on “Performance Governance System” attended by Police Regional Office 6 Director, Senior Supt. Franklin Jesus Bucayu, and other PNP officials. Read more.

The recently concluded governance boot camp gave strategy experts from the National Electrification Administration (NEA) and the Philippine Navy an opportunity to reach out to their peers in the public sector. These two institutions continue to lead the pack of national agencies that are adopting or running governance programs.

National Electrification Administration

As the first national institution to complete ISA’s Performance Governance System, NEA is determined to share what it has learned with other government institutions that are planning or implementing reform programs. Administrator Edita S. Bueno herself led a study tour of the Pampanga I Electric Cooperative (PELCO I) on the first day of the boot camp in order to demonstrate the systems and successes of the Rural Electrification Program. ‘The statistics speak for themselves,’ Admin. Bueno declared, pointing to the fact that as of December 2011, more municipalities, cities, and barangays are more dependent on electric cooperatives than other providers. PELCO I itself has energized its territory completely, and its general manager, Engr. Loliano E. Allas, credits their progress to the cultural change in the central office. ‘Employee morale is at an all-time high,’ he shared. ‘This translates to excellent individual performance, especially on the frontlines.’

For more information on NEA and its current projects, log on to www.nea.gov.ph.

Philippine Navy

After having concluded a massively successful year in capacity- and credibility-building, the Philippine Navy continues to work towards its 2020 vision of becoming a strong and credible organization that can respond to the needs of the Philippines as a maritime nation. During the boot camp, Center for Naval Leadership and Excellence (CNLE) Deputy Director LT Edwin German A. Cordova, former Naval Doctrines Director COL Eugene Erwin R. Martinez, and Vice Commander RADM Orwen J. Cortez campaigned for support through a series of presentations on the improvements the organization has undergone since the implementation of their good governance program. ‘We have begun the 2020 journey, but we cannot sail alone.’ Admiral Cortez shared, ‘2012 is a very important year for all of us.’

At present the Navy is working on the completion of a personal governance program that can direct individual performance to organizational breakthroughs, kick-starting the year with the first leg of the Philippine Navy Governance Forum Series.

Read more about the Navy 2020 Sail Plan on www.navy.mil.ph.

50 government officials from over 15 local and national government institutions took part in the January 2012 Performance Governance System Boot Camp, a weeklong deep dive into governance theory and its applications in the Philippine political setting. The boot camp was organized by the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA) in partnership with the National Electrification Administration (NEA), Philippine Navy, COMFAC Global Group, and Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).

During the learning institutes and workshops, the boot campers shared their experiences in implementing governance culture programs in their institutions, and sat down with governance practitioners from top-performing public sector organizations like the National Electrification Administration, Philippine Navy, Philippine Army, Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the Cities of Masbate and San Fernando Pampanga. Participants from private sector institutions like the Bataan State Peninsula University and Winternitz Insurance Brokers Corporation likewise came to learn from the public sector experience.

The January 2012 boot camp was the first to make use of the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) philosophy, which ISA Chairman Jesus Estanislao used to design the personal governance and governance culture learning institutes. The facilitation technique, which is attributed to Dr. David Cooperrider, endeavours to guide individuals and institutions towards change by reaffirming and developing their strengths.

The next governance boot camp will be held in July 2012.

THE NATIONAL Competitiveness Council (NCC) will unveil later this year a 20-year road map in a bid to sustain business and economic reforms to be accomplished in the medium term, an official said yesterday.

The public-private council in the next few months will focus on establishing regional competitiveness committees and co-developing industry road maps as two of the building blocks of the long-term plan.

The competitiveness road map will be designed to align with the six-year Philippine Development Plan for President Benigno S. C. Aquino III’s term and NCC’s own 2016 target to be one of the top 30 economies in the globe.

“We need to do a strategic long-term perspective for our competitiveness plan. We have all this data on the government and industries, but we have to organize them into a plan, because if there is one, it’ll be easier to understand where the country is going,” Guillermo M. Luz, NCC private sector co-chair, said on the sidelines of the group’s press conference. Read more.