With ASEAN integration around the corner, two public institutions take their cue from the business community and adapt systems to prepare them to bring the Philippines into the ASEAN Economic Community
Corruption scandals. Modernization issues. A problematic image.
These are just some of the problems that have plagued the Philippine Army in recent history. But perhaps the biggest challenge it had to face was the lack of a clear, long-term vision with measurable results.
This meant that organizational goals would change with the change in leadership. Not only were there no strategies to guide the men and women of the Army, but there was also no way by which to measure their individual contributions to the organization as a whole, much less their collective progress.
Philippine Army Commanding General Lt. Gen. Hernando Iriberri recalls, “Previously, all we could measure were operational accomplishments: how many firearms were lost, how many of our troops died. But when it came to our organizational development, we couldn’t measure it.”
All this has changed. In 2010, the Army underwent a governance reform program called the Performance Governance System (PGS), under which they developed the Army Transformation Roadmap (ATR)—a strategic plan that outlines where the Army will be in 2028, and more importantly, how it will get there.
Iriberri, who says he was fortunate to have inherited the ATR from his predecessors, emphasizes, “The ATR is now the core of our strategy. It’s the driving force in terms of our organizational development.” So deeply rooted is the ATR in the Army that everything is now aligned—operations, human resources and budget.
With the ATR in place, the Army looks ahead to 2028, when it envisions itself to be “a world-class army that is a source of national pride.”
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Butuan City Mayor Ferdinand Amante, Jr. (second from left) speaks at the Public Governance Forum held early this month.
USING BUSINESS CONCEPTS
The PGS was developed by the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA), a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization that advocates for reform in public institutions and works to strengthen them.
“When we talk of strengthening public institutions—whether they’re local government units (LGUs) or national government agencies (NGAs)—what we mean by that is to introduce to the organization what they refer to in business school as strategic thinking and strategic discipline,” ISA Executive Director Christian Zaens explains.
Because these concepts are traditionally used in the realm of business, they may not be familiar to people in government. But ISA has proven that they do work for the public sector. Since its founding in 2000, it has worked with a long list of institutions. Currently, 10 NGAs and seven LGUs are undergoing the PGS.
A strategic mindset keeps an eye on the long-term and focuses on the institution instead of personalities, interrelates issues instead of addressing them as stand-alone issues, and views systems as a whole, Zaens says.
But it’s the disciplined execution that is crucial. “It’s easy to plan—but for the plan to work, we insist that you adhere to certain disciplines,” Zaens says. “People are made accountable regularly, they know exactly what they’re going to deliver because it’s quantifiable, and they differentiate the operational or day to day from what is strategic,” he adds.
As part of this, ISA introduced the Balanced Scorecard, a strategic management tool developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton of the Harvard Business School, which translates an organization’s strategy into measurable items.
Under the PGS, ISA partners come up with their own scorecards. The Army, for instance, has distributed scorecards to the different levels and units of the organization, and to over 70,000 enlisted personnel.
A ‘WORLD-CLASS ARMY’
Ask Iriberri what it means to be a “world-class army”, and he’ll recall what the Filipino troops did in Golan Heights in August 2014. Surrounded by more than 100 Syrian rebels, the 40 soldiers—who were members of a United Nations peacekeeping mission—were ordered to surrender. They refused and instead held their ground for seven hours, returning fire with their own equipment and coming out unharmed at the end.
“Being a world-class army doesn’t mean that you have to have the most modern equipment,” Iriberri points out. “Nasa puso ’yan, nasa galing ’yan, nasa experience ‘yan, at nasa paniniwala (It’s in your heart, in your capability, in your experience, and in your conviction).”
But perhaps the real battle is in the hearts and minds of the people. “We must be able to convince the people that they have an Army they can be truly proud of,” Iriberri says.
Zaens says that the PGS helped the Army change its image. “The Army is now seen as being part of development, someone who will come to your rescue when there is a disaster,” he says.
The findings of a countrywide survey by Club-Med Asia, Inc. in March 2014 are particularly telling. The Army scored 75 percent in net trust, 70 percent in satisfaction, and 68 percent in nation-building in health, economic gains, public works, rescue and relief, education, and peace and order.
In time for ASEAN integration, the Army’s base camp for 2016 is to establish a respectable image in Southeast Asia, Iriberri says. Given the positive results of the PGS for the Army, it looks like they will march on to that goal.
BUTUAN CITY AND ITS ‘MISSING LINK’
“When we talk of governance in ISA, we are really advocating for public institutions to have a strategic mentality and a strategic discipline, so that they undergo transformation,” ISA Executive Director Christian Zaens says.
This may be easier said than done when you factor in the realities of the bureaucracy, such as frequent or sudden leadership changes, and lack of resources. And then there’s the culture or mindset. “Many people have said that when you’re in the bureaucracy, your mentality is really the day to day. Yes, the day to day is important—but equally important is strategic thinking,” Zaens emphasizes. “There is also a future to prepare for.”
Without strategic thinking, public institutions can lose sight of what it should be 10 or 15 years from now. Strategic thinking ensures that they are responsive to the needs of the future. “The last thing you’d like to see is an agency or city that is irrelevant in the future, because it didn’t prepare for it,” Zaens says.
This may be what Butuan City Mayor Ferdinand Amante, Jr. had in mind when he partnered with ISA for the PGS. Speaking at the Public Governance Forum held earlier this month, Amante says, “In the 1950s and 60s, we were in our heyday as the logging capital of the country. But the forest supply dwindled.”
Attempts to rehabilitate the forest through long decades of planting were fruitless, Amante recalls. Rising poverty and massive floods from typhoons compounded the situation. The “missing link” in previous efforts was “governance [/fusion_builder_column][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][that has] the vision, knows how to get there, and knows how to educate the people and lets them realize their individual role and responsibility to contribute to the realization of the dream,” Amante says.
Under the PGS, a new vision was formulated: “By 2020, Butuan City will become a model for sustainable forest-based economy in the country with the highest per capita income growth rate in Mindanao.” The city aims to raise the standard of living for the people of Butuan, and to revive its past as the “Timber City of the South.”
To achieve this, the city turned to agro-forestry—in particular, farming the falcata, a softwood tree used for biomass and plywood. A falcata seedling costs only P1.50. After six years, it can be harvested for P3,000, Amante says.
Falcata tree farming is projected to yield a net profit of P1.8M per hectare. At 5,000 hectares per year, it is expected to contribute at least P9 billion annually to the local economy starting in 2020. “Because the farmers [are] planting trees in small holdings, inclusive growth can really be felt and realized,” Amante says.
For June 2015, Butuan City targeted five million trees. As of March, they have already hit their target, as verified through geo-tagging.
‘ISLANDS OF GOOD GOVERNANCE’
Public institutions in the PGS go through four stages: initiation, compliance, proficiency and institutionalization. At each stage, they have to show certain results and report their progress with the PGS through a public reválida or evaluation during the Public Governance Forum, held twice a year.
Butuan City was just one of nine public institutions that participated in the recent forum. It is also one of 10 LGUs and 13 NGAs in ISA’s Islands of Good Governance (IGG) initiative, which will be showcased at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit to be held in Manila this November.
Zaens says there are two parameters for the IGG: they should be able to show breakthrough results, and the mechanisms that helped them produce those results should be embedded in the organization.
“Those who pass the audit will be recognized as Islands of Good Governance,” Zaens says. Like an ISO for governance, the IGG status will be renewed every three years.
The aim is to produce governance standards that produce results, and that will continue to produce results in the future. “It’s really ISA’s PGS—the whole governance pathway—taken to the next level,” Zaens states, adding that ISA’s work through the PGS and IGG ensures that good governance becomes a way of life. “That’s our thinking,” Zaens says, “building the nation one city at a time, one agency at a time.”
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