The Bureau of Internal Revenue, Philippine National Police, Departments of Education, of Transportation and Communications, of Health, of Public Works and Highways have “chosen to initiate this process” after discovering “there’s unfortunately no national vision where we could align our respective vision statements.”
Cesar Bautista, former ambassador extraordinary plenipotentiary to London, said at the forum the six government units were tasked to each formulate a performance governance system (PGS).
Business Mirror, Sept. 25, 2009
DO our top government leaders have even a faint idea of where the Philippines should be about 20 years from now? If they have, they have managed all these years to keep it under their collective hats.
Noticing they are having a hard time with their own objectives with no guidance from a missing national vision of the Philippines, several government agencies banded together in an effort to have what they call a “common scorecard of public governance” and presented it in a forum in Makati on Thursday.
The Bureau of Internal Revenue, Philippine National Police, Departments of Education, of Transportation and Communications, of Health, of Public Works and Highways have “chosen to initiate this process” after discovering “there’s unfortunately no national vision where we could align our respective vision statements.”
Cesar Bautista, former ambassador extraordinary plenipotentiary to London, said at the forum the six government units were tasked to each formulate a performance governance system (PGS).
Bautista, who is also National Competitiveness Council chairman, added the managers of these agencieswere also tasked to craft a common vision of what the Philippines would be 20 years from now.
These two actions, they hope, would help them translate their strategies into concrete steps on how this vision can be achieved, as well as establish the key indicators that the goals are being accomplished, according to Bautista.
“This is something unique,” said balanced public governance scorecard originator David Norton. “What I’ve seen happening here is an evolutionary approach.”
Norton, also director of balanced scorecard consultancy firm Palladium Group, said these government agencies “should go ahead and build strategy as much as they can at their own level. But they should take it to the higher level [the executive] so that they become a catalyst for [good]governance.”
Palladium’s Ivan Choi said the governance scorecard can be used by Filipino voters to monitor government performance. “They would now have a basis to ask why the scores are low in this area, like education, than promised or stated in the scorecard. They can check the promises of politicians or the claims of officials that this strategy is working well for the people.”
A given example of the scorecard is the local government of the City of San Fernando in Pampanga, which was certified by Palladium as having institutionalized a balanced scorecard system.
According to the city government’s document, it envisions having developed a sense of pride of place among San Fernandoans by 2015. But this can only be reached if the city government is able to improve the socioeconomic condition of its people and have generated employment opportunities.
The city is given a score for every objective and strategy, e.g., social services and security, business friendliness, greenness and cleanliness, etc.
Norton said his rule of thumb is for an agency to allot 5 percent of its revenue to fund such initiative. It is also ideal to appoint three people to form a team that will go into monitoring scorecard performance full time.
The return or benefits of PGS, he said, could be expected after two to three years. One of the benefits is generating local income. For example, the City of San Fernando has decreased its dependency on its internal-revenue allotment to 49 percent last year from nearly 53 percent in 2007.
It took the City of San Fernando almost five years to reach higher scores and gain certification.
An official said during the forum one of the challenges in doing the PGS is the culture of patronage politics that permeates Philippine society.
But Norton urged them, “never give up the fight.” D. Estopace
Original Article in Business Mirror, Sept.25, 2009
