What is wrong with Philippine public administration?

“Poor countries are poor not because they lack resources, but because they lack effective political institutions." -Francis Fukuyama

In a recent survey, The Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC), a survey of expatriate businessmen, rated the Philippines an 7.57 out of a worst possible score of 10 as among the worst and most frustrating bureaucracies in Asia; coming only fourth to Indonesia (8.37), Vietnam (8.54) and India (9.11) (PERC, 2012). Public administration in the Philippines have always been focused on three concerns—reorganisation, decentralisation and corruption.

Reorganisation of the bureaucracy has always been an initiative of any Philippine president throughout the years. Reorganisation programs have been mainly concerned with ensuring the effectiveness, efficiency, affordability and accountability of government; that is, government effort must be focused on its core functions, rationalisation of service delivery support systems and right staffing, rationalise government funds and ensuring transparency, respectively.

To achieve a government that works better but costs less, the government must streamline and reengineer the redundant and bloated Philippine bureaucracy. As per the latest 2008 Inventory of Government Personnel Data, the Philippine bureaucracy has a total of 1,313,538 government personnel. National Government Agencies (NGA) staff the most number with 832,676 (63.39%) while Local Government Units (LGU) have 381,502 (29.04%) and Government Owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCC) have 99,360 (7.56%). Compared to the last inventory conducted by the Civil Service in 2004, the number of government personnel decreased by 11%, from 1,475,699 in 2004 to 1,313,538 in 2008.

The decrease in government personnel prove to be a step forward in reducing the bloated size of the Philippine bureaucracy. However, the regional distribution of government personnel continues to be misplaced. Staff in the National Capital Region (NCR) increased from 437, 243 (29.63%) in 2004 to 506,103 (38.53%) in 2008, a percentage increase of 8.9%. Comparatively, the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which is perennially among the poorest regions in the Philippines, only has 50, 676 (3.86%) of the total number of government personnel. As it was in 2004, the Philippine bureaucracy continues to be maldistributed, “areas which need the services more have only a few number of public servants” (Brillantes, 2008).

            Brillantes adequately pointed out the numbers and statistics of the sizes which continue to plague Philippine public administration. However, what numbers cannot explain is the aspect of professionalization and degree of autonomy of the bureaucracy. One of the core functions of public administration is regulation. “To ensure their regulatory independence, agencies are typically staffed by experts, lawyers, and accountants who have neither run for political office nor previously worked for any player in the industry they are regulating” (David, 2013). The degree of professionalization and autonomy of the Philippine state apparatus can be examined in the recent issue of the Manila Electric Company (MERALCO) increase rate in electricity. In his Philippine Daily Inquirer article, Randy David (2013) examines the case of the current chair of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), Zenaida Cruz-Ducut. She is ill-suited for the position, as her background suggests. Ducut was a member of Congress for nine years where she was a loyalist of then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Upon the end of GMA’s presidency, she started giving out positions to her loyalists. Ducut was a political appointee of GMA to the ERC. She was a lawyer; she had no idea about the functions and how to run the ERC. Recently, whistle blower Benhur Luy said that Ducut was involved in the pork barrel scam where she acted as an intermediary between lawmakers and Janet-Lim Napoles. The inability of the Philippine public administration to be insulated from the collusion between state actors and rent-seeking oligarchs is what hinders development in the Philippines, contributing to the overall cycle of booty capitalism (Hutchcroft, 1998).

            Aside from reorganisation, decentralisation has been a mechanism adopted by governments all over the world to design a public administration that is not only more efficient but also more responsive (Brillantes, 2008). To further understand the concept, decentralisation could be operationalised in three ways: deconcentration, devolution and debureucratisation.

            Deconcentration is a form of decentralisation that limits lower levels of government to mere transmitting of orders and implementing decisions that are decided centrally. Devolution, on the other hand, is the most extensive form of decentralisation where powers and responsibilities are transferred from national government to local governments. These responsibilities and powers include the delivery of basic services and fiscal powers, respectively. Finally, debureaucratisation involves moving beyond government into co-opting the private sector and non-governmental organisations in the delivery of services.

In the Philippines, decentralisation culminated with the Local Government Code (LGC) of 1991, which provided for the most sweeping devolution of powers and responsibilities in the entire Philippine history. Devolution is based upon the principle of proximity; the local government unit (LGU) is the nearest to the people, therefore it is in the best position to serve them. One of the major features of the LGC is the increase responsibility for the delivery of various aspects of basic services such as in health, public works and education. Another is the responsibility of enforcement of certain regulatory powers such as the enforcement of environmental law. Financial resources and powers are also decentralised by broadening their taxing powers and an increased share from the national taxes through the institutionalisation of the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA). Finally, the LGC of 1991 “increased the democratic space of civil society and embraced them in participating in local governance” (Brillantes, 2008), as evident in the increase in the number and participation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) over the years.

However, despite the promises of decentralisation, a recent World Bank Public Expenditure Review (WB-PER) argues that “decentralization in the Philippines has not played an important role in reducing geographic disparities and instead may be exacerbating them” (World Bank, 2011). This is largely due to a number of problems the last 20 years of decentralisation have experienced—lack of fiscal capacity and autonomy of LGUs and misplaced and unaccountable spending

“If you ask any LGU in the Philippines if their funding is enough for their constituency, they would always say it is not enough—parating kulang. We need more money; we need more funds to serve our constituency much better,” Mayor Sherwin Gatchalian said in a 2012 forum on fiscal decentralisation. The weak fiscal capacity of LGUs has restricted them from performing the devolved responsibilities. This is largely due to an increased dependence on an IRA that is not, in the first place, equalising. Eighty nine percent of LGU financial resources come from the IRA whereas only 11% come from Non-IRA resources (Llanto, 2012). Although they are given extensive taxation powers to generate their own revenue, the poorest provinces simply do not have a large enough of a tax base. To further exacerbate the geographical inequality, on a per capita basis, more allotments go to LGUS with higher per capita local revenues (Guevera et al, 1994). Also, LGUs receive mandates from national government without a clear source for funding.  For example, the Magna Carta for Public Health Workers mandates LGUs to pay for subsistence allowance, laundry allowance, hazard pay, etc. without a legislated source of funding. IRA dependence and its non-equalising formulation have not only incapacitated the LGU, it has also compromised the LGU’s genuine autonomy.

An examination of the expenditure pattern of LGUs suggests misplaced priorities. From 2001 to 2008, expenditure on social services was on a steady incremental decrease from 26.1% to 20.3%; this is despite the general rise in population (Diokno, 2012). While expenditure on social services continued to fall, budget shares of general public services and other purposes, which can be considered as administrative overhead, rose from 40.5% to 44.1% and 12.4% to 17.2%. Further, local governments commonly charge payment of contractual workers to maintenance and other operating expenditure or against development projects, which are supposed to be charged as overhead (Llanto, 2012). Also, LGUs commonly supplement costs that are supposed to be funded by national government. In effect, spending for social services and capital goods are drowned out. The absence of a performance monitoring system of local service delivery makes it difficult to examine and oversee local service delivery (Diokno, 2012).

Finally, public administration in the Philippines is plagued by the perennial, pervasive and pathological issue of corruption. The misuse of public power for private profit hinders growth and development by deterring trade and investment and inefficient spending (Brillantes, 2008). National government agencies have always been at the centre of corruption scandals. Just recently, corruption in the Bureau of Customs even pushed Commissioner Rodolfo Biazon to call for its dissolution and eventually, his resignation. Anecdotal evidences point out to corruption in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and constant harassment of businessmen. Aside from national state actors, operating under the radar of accountability and commonly viewed through rose-coloured lenses are local politicians who often escape with corruption.

Consider the IRA, at one level, it is an inter-governmental transfer to further capacitate LGUs in local service delivery; at another level, chunks of the IRA are controlled with personal discretion by local politicians like governors, mayors, municipal mayors and barangay captains. Further, development decision making is not based on technical assessment but rather in constantly shifting power relations and electoral considerations (Hutchcroft, 2012). The IRA, being a source of patronage, places “money politics” above policies and programs. This effectively builds authoritarian-like structures in the locale and encourages warlord-like behaviour of local politicians. At the national level, this further de-incentivises the formation of ideology-based and programmatic political parties. To exacerbate the problem, the only institutional check on local politicians is mid-term elections. The lack of accountability mechanisms in both behaviour and expenditure has bred difficult problems in governance.

After discussing these issues and problems, it is imperative that the question posed by Brillantes at the beginning of his article be answered—is there a Philippine public administration? Or better still, for whom is Philippine public administration?

Resonating his initial answer, indeed, there is a Philippine public administration in terms of administrative structures and processes. National bureaucratic agencies like the aforementioned Bureau of Customs and Bureau of Internal Revenue have respective organisational features, functions and procedures as much as sub-national administrative arms like local government units possess their own. However, its mere existence matters less than for whom it actually exists—does Philippine public administration exist for the general public?

The situational examples that were previously given in this review provide empirical evidence to how many scholars brand the Philippine state as patrimonial (Hutchroft, 1998; McCoy, 1993). According to Paul Hurtchroft (1991), “the state apparatus is chocked continually by an anarchy of particularistic demands from, and particularistic actions on behalf of, those oligarchs and cronies who are currently most favoured by its top officials.” For modern capitalism to work and fulfil its promises of general prosperity, the bureaucracy must function along impersonal and rational lines of service and regulation. However, in the Philippines, oligarchic interests and rent-seeking behaviour totally captures the bureaucracy and manipulates it according to their purposes. Not only that, state actors, who commonly come from oligarchic families, also use the state apparatus to accumulate personal wealth at the expense of the general public. The most recent issue of alleged collusion between a local politician and contractors, who will receive 30% to 35% kickback, in the sub-par bunkhouses built for Yolanda victims can attest to such claims.  This co-optation between the social oligarchic elites and political state actors in capturing a highly weak and incoherent bureaucracy has created patterns of political continuity in what can be classified as a patrimonial, anti-development and predatory Philippine state.

Is there a Philippine public administration? Of course, there is. Better still, for whom is Philippine public administration? Unfortunately, it has and continues to exist for the powers that be.

Bibliography

Bibliography

Bello, Walden. "The Political Economy of Permanent Crisis." In The Anti-Development State: The Political Economy of Permanent Crisis in the Philippines, by Walden Bello. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2009.

Brillantes, Alex B. Is there a Philippine Public Administration? Or Better Still, For Whom is Philippine Public Administration? Quezon City: University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration, 2008.

Commission, Philippine Civil Service. Inventory of Government Personnel Data. Quezozn City: Philippine Civil Service Commission, 2008.

David, Randolf. "Who will regulate the regulators?" Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 21, 2013.

Diokno, Benjamin. "Decentralization in the Philippines After 20 Years: What Have We Learned? Where do we go from here?" In The Philippine Review of Economics, by Ramon Clarete. Quezon City: University of the Philipines School of Economics, 2012.

Fukuyama, Francis. The Origins of Political Order. London: Profile Books LTD, 2011.

Hutchcroft, Paul. Booty Capitalism: the politics of banking in the Philippines. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1998.

Hutchroft, Paul. "Re-slicing the pie of patronage: the politics of the internal revenue allotment in the Philippines, 1991-2010." In The Philippine Review of Economics, by Ramon Clarete. Quezon City: University of the Philippines School of Economics, 2012.

Llanto, Gilbert. "The assignment of functions and intergovernmental fiscal relations in the Philippines: 20 years after decentralization." In The Philippine Review of Economics, by Ramon Clarete. Quezon City: University of the Philippines School of Economics, 2012.

McCoy, Alfred. Anarchy of Families. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1994.

The Local Government Code of the Phillippines. 1991.

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On Modernity, Media and Politics

In modernity where society is fragmented into different function systems, the fundamental question of how a certain level of integration is at all possible comes into the spotlight. In other words, if the left hand is totally oblivious of the right hand’s doings, why has modern society not disintegrated into a chaotic anarchy of social spheres? Modernity, of course, counters such a tendency with a clever mechanism—the phenomena of structural coupling.

In its simplest operationalisation, structural coupling is when the decisions of one function system become the environment of the other. What one system releases, the other system cognitises based on its own codes. Function systems couple with one another because it allows them to solve complexity better. To provide a case, the structural coupling of mass media and politics can be highlighted. Politics serves the function of making collectively binding decisions. Media facilitates such a function by providing politics a link with the collective public who political decisions affect; either primarily through public engagement and subsequently through dissemination of political decisions.  On the other hand, politics facilitates the function of media by providing them with news stories and content. Together, they are able to function more efficiently to solve society’s complexities better. 

Structural coupling is only possible in a modern society, where functional differentiation is of primacy. It follows a fairly simple logic; a sphere can only couple with another sphere if they are differentiated from each other. If they are not duly differentiated and operationally closed, they are but one sphere, not a coupling of two independent spheres. In fact, pathologies arise because of a coupling that makes function systems lose their autonomy—the domination of one sphere of another. Structural coupling presupposes sharp lines of functional differentiation. Therefore, domination is highly characteristic of transitional societies lacking such a line. In the Philippines, a society caught in the transition to modernity, domination is rampant; none more apparent, perhaps, is the domination of media in Philippine politics.

 Philippine politics is arguably perception driven. It is a show where plots are strategically produced, speeches are thoughtfully scripted and actions are carefully staged. The public simply watches in awe, concerned with aesthetics and oblivious of content. Media has infused into politics its mechanisms; it has produced a politics that is not based on genuine state and civil society interaction, but on an interaction mediated by images. As a result, political decisions are no longer made with the public in mind, although it is staged in that way. The public is reduced to a passive spectator. Political truths are how they are resolved in media. How many politicians have escaped the public eye by simply not showing up to media? How many media people have won political offices from their crafted images as expositors of failures in politics? How many public outrages have pacified because of spin tactics such as clever language, convincing delivery and carefully scripted plots? The domination of mass media in politics has dangerous and terrifying implications.

In the miracle of the century, however, the rise of social media compels the decoupling of mass media and politics. Where the internet constituency orients itself more with critical worded information that they themselves are now able to produce, the authoritarian spectacle of images loses its power. It tears politics out of the hold of media and returns it back to the domain of the public. However, in a Philippine society where a large number of its population is marred by constrictive socioeconomic conditions, is the escape from the spectacle fully possible? One can only wonder how the large part of the Philippine population, who have no access to the internet and still rely on traditional forms of media such as the television, are still caught in awe of the carefully crafted aesthetics in politics. It seems that the show, as they say, must and will go on.

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How is Public Opinion on the PDAF Scam Formed?

(I wrote this as a conclusion in a group research we did for our Political Science 160: Society, Politics, and Government class. The research is concerned with public opinion formation on the PDAF scam. For the full content of the research, please visit two-mato.weebly.com. Yes, it is an awesome site name.)

Public Opinion: A Game of Power

The data suggests mainly two important things. First, public opinion on specific issues such as the PDAF scam is not essentially freely formulated and materialised; it is subject to a multiplicity of factors, not the least important is the interaction between the state and civil society. Public opinion takes information shortcuts, unlikely to spend time gathering large amounts of comprehensive information (Sniderman, 1993). It takes its cues from and is largely shaped according to the actors dominating in the issue discourse. Through this, actors or elites obtain the power to set the agenda, direction and to a certain extent, content of public opinion. This noticeably materialises in the case when Miriam Santiago came out criticising certain lawmakers, coupled with subsequent expositions of Napoles’ property and lifestyle, formed a generally strong, coherent and negative public opinion. More interestingly, when PNoy rejected the calls to abolish PDAF and provided justifications, public opinion began to be more or less fragmented, with many coming out and taking a similar position with the president. In another case, it is noticeable that when elites, both in state and civil society, shifts focus from lawmakers to Napoles; public opinion follows. Now conscious of its passive tendency, the public must go beyond information shortcuts if only to emancipate its opinion, consciousness and action from the control and agenda-setting powers of elites.

Second, it is impossible to miss that civil society produces the highest issue attention or the loudest voice across media sources; as it is shown in the dominance of red spikes in the graphs. What this empirically proves is that civil society is the leader in the formation of public opinion (Weakliem, 2005), not the state. This emphasizes the power of civil society in public awareness, opinion formation and action. The power of civil society is substantial—it is crucial for any nation that calls itself democratic that such power is maximised to counterbalance the power of the state.

In the final analysis, public opinion is a game of power; and information is the key resource to win. The public either allows itself to be subjected by the agenda-setting power of elites; or take charge in formulating their own opinion. It is of the utmost urgency and importance that we, the public and the sovereign, realise the immense power at our disposal, and utilise it for the transformation of Philippine politics.

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Game of Thrones: A Postmodern Analysis

(I wrote this piece primarily as a final paper for my literature class. But because I love Game of Thrones and postmodernism too much, I decided to share my analysis here. Beware! Reading this will definitely spoil everything for you--but I doubt you'd be here in the first place if you have not already watched or read Game of Thrones.)

A Quick Summary                                                            

             Game of Thrones revolves around the story of feuding families’ quest for power. It begins with King Robert of House Baratheon, lord of the Seven Kingdoms, asking his former war companion, Lord of Winterfell Ned Stark to leave the north to help him run the state of affairs as the new Hand of the King. The conflict begins when Ned Stark discovers that the son of Robert and Cersei of House Lannister, Joffrey Baratheon, was not legitimate but rather a product of incest between Cersei and her brother, Jaime Lannister. When Robert died, as a result of Cersei’s plot, Ned and Cersei fought for the control of the Seven Kingdoms. In the end, Joffrey becomes the new King, a very evil one at that, and Ned ends up beheaded for treason.

            Ned’s death destabilised Westeros and opened up political opportunities to lay claims on the Iron Throne. One of them is Stannis Baratheon, the brother of the late King Robert, who led a strong attack on King’s Landing to claim what he believes is rightfully his. However, Tyrion Lannister, a midget who is considered a disgrace to his house, outwits him and successfully fends off the siege. But even after saving everyone, Cersei still tried to have him killed, leaving him with a permanent scar on his face. Only Varys, the castrated and wise Eunuch, seems to believe in Tyrion, to the extent of considering him as the only worthy King, more by his merits and not by his last name, of the Seven Kingdoms. However in the end, Tywin, Tyrions’ father, strips him of all his powers and claims responsibility for the victory.

            Robb Stark, the son of the deceased Ned, is also one who has claims to the throne. His sisters, Sansa and Arya, were held captive at King’s Landing; however, the feisty young Arya was able to escape. After successful developments in his quest to take power, Robb commits a series of mistakes. As the young wolf was only a few steps closer to his goal, his mistakes come back to assassinate him in his uncle’s wedding.

            In the remote areas of Westeros, the last of house Targaryen, Daenerys marries Khal Drogo of the Dothraki for an army to forward her claims to the throne. However, Drogo dies from a sickness and causes a divide within the the Dothraki. She further strengthened her army with the unsullied, but men were not her only weapons. True to her house, Daenerys is the mother of dragons and has at her disposal the last three dragons in all of Westeros.

On the other side of the wall, Jon Snow, the illegitimate son of Ned Stark, pledges to the Nights’ Watch to protect Westeros from wildlings and the mystical monsters that are the white walkers. By some unlucky twist of fate, he gets captured by the wildlings, the free folk who do not acknowledge the authority of any King. He falls in love with one of them but eventually deserts the group to return to the watch.  By that time, the white walkers are marching towards the wall, posing as the more pressing threat to the Seven Kingdoms.

What is postmodernism?

Postmodernism rejects all standards, conventions and universalised truths of reality as not only pretentious but dangerously misleading. It is sceptical of logical assumptions digging through the surface of the world as if to reveal underlying realities and inner essences that it claims to not even exist primarily. It holds that objective reality as it exists can never be captured just as even the consciousness and cognition of man cannot be captured by the only existing mediator he possesses that is language. By dismissing the assumption that the world is reducible and objective truth can be realised, postmodernism celebrates the superficiality of existence and opens the notions of reality to the vast plurality of interpretations of distinct worldviews.

Formally, postmodernism is best conceptualised in three parts—ontology, epistemology and methodology. By doing so, one begins to understand that it is not a critique for its own sake. In actuality, postmodernism arrests to expose and challenge what were previously assumed to be unproblematic and uncontentious in our notions of reality and the manner in which we structure and understand our world.

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality. As such, it can be best simplified by the question “what is out there to know about?” Postmodernism maintains an ontology of difference (Hay, 2002). Reality is not a general experience; but almost infinitely diverse according to different subject positions. Moreover, one’s consciousness and cognition is constructed by the specific discourses of cultural contexts. By introducing spatio-temporal factors, postmodernism holds that no experience, down to its minute details, is ever the same; thus, it must be understood in its own terms.

Epistemology is the philosophical study of the nature and scope of knowledge. Similarly, it can be summarised by the question “what can we, or at least hope to, know about it?” The postmodernist ontology of difference necessarily leads to an epistemology of scepticism (Hay, 2002). As the world and reality is viewed from a plurality of perspectives and subject-positions, it accords that every view must hold equal value. Consequently, postmodernism develops scepticism on all epistemological traditions. Knowledge is premised on the understanding of the world; and in a world of difference, knowledge is relative to the different worldviews of different subject-positions. For postmodernists, it is not knowledge per se but knowledge from where.

Postmodernism espouses a methodology, best captured by the question “how can we go about knowing it?”, of deconstruction (Hay, 2002). By respecting differences in subject-positions and questioning the certainty of knowledge, postmodernists wilfully refuse to substantively make knowledge-claims all together. It does not attempt to construct knowledge to facilitate understanding of the world and reality, but rather deconstruct already established conventions and universalised truths.

In literature and the arts, postmodernism seeks to replace rigidity and uniformity and its consequent dullness with a more playful dissonance. It dislikes conventional and traditional styles of narrative coherence, arguing for texts to become more plural. It disrupts the modernist obsession with control and precision through binary hierarchies, embracing chance and contingency. It rejects the monopoly of voice of the author, where texts are to be interpreted and even appreciated based on the author’s original message.  Postmodernism brings works of art to life by opening it to the audience for engagement. In this way, the “cult of the artist” (Hay, 2002) is replaced by the “death of the author” (Barthes, 1977). Art and literature is removed from authorship and art galleries and takes it to the streets. Art is not a finished product; it is a continuously recreated and reconceptualised by the author-audience relationship that is no longer characterised by a hierarchical divide. Postmodernism democratises what once was dictated by artists and allows the full participation of the audience in the creation and interpretation of what has become their art.

Game of Thrones as Postmodern

            Game of Thrones may be situated in a medieval context, where lords rule and dragons exist, but it is one of this generation’s few postmodern works of art that has dominated mainstream literature and television. By virtue of the relationship between the author, his work, and the audience and its compelling deconstruction of conventions about power, Game of Thrones disrupts and reconceptualises all notions of what great art in a postmodern world is.

            Game of Thrones revolves around the story of feuding families’ quest for power. Each noble house has a distinct sigil and motto that represents and to a certain extent, even creates their identity and character. For example, the Stark family symbol is the gray direwolf on white and the motto “winter is coming” symbolises the honour, loyalty and moral compass of the house. On the other hand, the Lannister symbol of a golden lion on a red field and the motto “a Lannister always pays his debts” represents the power, wealth and cunningness of the family. The other noble houses of the Baratheons and Targaryens also have their respective sigils and mottos. Considering the complexity of these ties, Game of Thrones celebrates the plurality, diversity and dissonance that bring together multiple voices to explore the plot which the characters themselves direct. It allows the different worldviews of each house to problematise the quest for power in ways that are multivalent and in some ways conflicting, refusing the uniformity of and rigidity of a single standard and convention. Not to mention that under each house, there exist different personas that do not necessarily conform to what their family symbolises, which just creates more subject-positions in which the story can be problematised.

            To add more layers of complexity to Game of Thrones, the author refuses to commit to any single house or character. He breaks all conventions of the binary divide between protagonist and antagonist when he decides to kill off the appearing protagonists Ned and Robb of house Stark early, and paints a more humane picture of the seeming antagonists of Tyrion, Jaime and Tywin of house Lannister. He allows the different characters to tell the story from their position, dedicating episodes to their different narratives. Through his uncommitment to a single house or character, the author refuses to allow his persona to become the metta-narrative and dominate the piece. Instead, he successfully disentangles himself from his work and allows the plurality of his characters to take over.  By breaking all conventions of binary opposites and hierarchies, he prohibits rigidity and uniformity and compels his work to disintegrate into a playful anarchy of families and personas.

            The “death of the author” (Barthes, 1977) and the rise of his work as its own consequently democratised Game of Thrones to the full engagement of the audience. The multi-perspective nature of the piece does not constrain the audience to the task of figuring out what the author’s purpose and underlying truths is; it allows the audience to take the piece as it is, and freely view it from the plethora of perspectives that it offers. By being anti-form, Game of Thrones is able to engage the audience in a more compelling and immersive manner. The audience need not be constrained to the take the moral high-ground of the Starks, they are free to see the piece through the Lannister lens of cunningness or even in the reflective eyes of Varys. Such is only possible because rather than taking a single perspective or an omniscient narrator, the piece is rooted in the many characters it constitutes. Game of Thrones does not conventionally impose on the reader a specific position, ideology or moral; it celebrates openness where the audience decides for themselves how they want to interpret the story.

             The open, anti-form, and plural nature of Game of Thrones is bound to encourage the deconstruction of conventions, standards and universalised truths. It does not, however, simply encourages and leaves it audience to such task; Game of Thrones takes it a step forward and deliberately exposes uncontested assumptions and knowledge claims that exist and continue to mislead notions. The piece certainly presents many opportunities and cases for deconstruction, but none more captivating than its discourses on power.

In one episode, when King Joffrey throws his command around only to realise that his title does not add up to Tywin’s role as patriarch of the Lannister house, Tywin breaks conventions about power and challenges a reconceptualization with the question “Do you really think a crown gives you power?” Tywin has always espoused the philosophy of putting family first and indeed, it has made the Lannisters a very powerful force in Westeros; whereas many who allow their families to disintegrate have suffered terrible fates. In contrast, there are also self-made men like Littlefinger and Varys who may not be born into major noble families, but through ambition and sheer determination have mobilised into the higher ups of power. Both forward the case that power is not merely physical prowess, wealth or family names; nobles may rule, but their networks and manipulative skills direct the structures and events of the Seven Kingdoms. In another case, Tyrion, Jon and Arya all transcend their biological limitations of being a midget, an illegitmate son and a young girl respectively to become powerful in their own right. Finally, in one of the most compelling and profound statements in Game of Thrones, Varys delivers the most postmodern understanding of power in a riddle—“If it is swordsmen who rule, why do we pretend kings have all the power? Power resides where men believe it resides.”

The epitome of a great postmodern work of art lies in the loose, interpretivist and participatory tripartite relationship between the author, the work and the audience. The author must divorce himself from his work and allow it to breathe a life of its own. By doing so, the audience is immersed into the piece, without regard for the author’s voice and motives and in complete harmony with the anarchy of pluralism that exists and breathes existence into the piece. It must not merely rely on the audience to spot opportunities for deconstruction. A great postmodern work of art arrests the audience and compels them to re-examine and deconstruct deeply held beliefs and ideas by exposing them in the very core of its story. By embracing a pluralist structure, fostering an engaging author-work-audience relationship, and deconstructing conventions of power, Game of Thrones is indeed a postmodern masterpiece.  

Works Cited

Hay, Colin. “The Challenge of Postmodernism.” Political Analysis: A Critical Introduction. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2002. 216-251. Print.

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The Irrationality of the Pork Barrel

In a recent report, Senate President Franklin Drilon was quoted to have rhetorically questioned the function of Congress if the pork barrel system would be abolished, “what will happen if we will not take a direct hand (in the identification of projects)? Let’s just abolish Congress then.” Several congressmen and senators share similar positions; national government cannot possibly know the needs of every locality and as representatives, they are more sensitive to the needs of our respective constituencies. Is such an assertion warranted? 

Internal Functional Differentiation of the Political System

Indeed, identifying what projects to be implemented by the executive branch as a role of legislators is arguable. Being representatives of their respective localities, they are undoubtedly more sensitive to the needs of their area than the national government. However, does knowledge necessarily follow sensitivity? A boy scout may be sensitive to the needs of the wounded, but does he have the in depth knowledge a trained medical man can provide? In this light, the capacity of legislators to identify the different and specific needs of their localities becomes highly questionable. Legislators are dominantly lawyers, businessmen or media people by profession. Given such demographics,  does a legislator have the necessary expert knowledge of a doctor to identify who needs immediate medical attention? Or that of an agriculture expert to know which fertilisers are best? Or that of urban planners to know where infrastructures must be strategically built? While a representative’s sensitivity may help in identifying projects in the local arena, they are not the most equipped to carry out such a function. It is for this reason that our political system, borrowed from arguably the most modern state in the world, provides for the separation of the legislative and executive branch; each branch has differentiated functions that only they can carry out most effectively. As Niklas Luhmann, a scholar of modernity, asserts; politics is functionally differentiated from administration. The administration is run by professionals who “specialize in elaborating and issuing binding decisions that satisfy certain requirements.” Their function is to formulate and implement projects and programs, given their trained professionals. On the other hand, politics, which is the sphere of representatives, deals with forming political support for such programs and decisions. When functions are mixed up, systems fail to effectively respond to the complexities of their environment and thus, incapacitate themselves to carry their supposed function and risk the breakdown of the system. Such is the threat that a pork barrel system poses; legislators cannot effectively legislate when they are concerned with the executive's function. Further, when they attempt at operating the function of the executive, they produce results that are mediocre due to their lack of necessary specialisations and skills. Therefore, it is not the function of legislators to identify and much more, meddle with the implementation of projects; it is the function of the administration or the executive department who has the professionals with expert knowledge and the capacity to implement these. National government, through grassroots democratic mechanisms, must coordinate with its bureaucracies, local government units and their development councils who have the sensitivity, knowledge and capacity to identify and implement programs and projects in localities.

Pork Barrel Politics and Executive-Legislative Relations

When President Aquino called for the abolition of the pork barrel system, he meant to abolish the Priority Development Assistant Fund (PDAF). The pork barrel system will continue to exist, albeit stricter mechanisms and safeguards compared to that of the PDAF. The move is quite commendable; and to a certain extent, may drastically lessen or even eradicate corruption entirely in the use of the pork barrel. The pork barrel system has been popularly framed as a corruption issue. But this is not its only anomaly. Spotlight should now be focused on it being an issue of executive-legislative relations. The new pork barrel system provides that Congress will still identify projects, although this time through line-items that will be deliberated upon as part of the General Appropriations Act or the national budget. Here, another problem arises. As long as legislators are given prerogative to identify where to use funds and thus to a certain extent, craft part of the budget, they compromise their intended function in the budgetary process as fiscalisers. The executive can then use this as a tool to keep Congress as a mere rubber stamp.  In this way, even under the new and supposedly stricter pork barrel system, Congress is still subject to executive domination. This further de-incentivises the formation of stronger political parties and encourages a weak opposition bent on the will of the government of the day. Ultimately, a pork barrel system, even with zero-incidence of corruption, subverts the check and balances a democratic system like ours provides. These institutions stay when governments come and go. In the hands of a morally upright President, the pork barrel may be a tool to expedite well-meaning programs and projects that are often stuck in government gridlock. However, in the hands of a corrupt president, it becomes a gun pointed at anyone who dares to stand on his way.

The pork barrel system, under any other name, can be dismissed as irrational. When representatives are given undue discretion in the identification of projects, funds become highly susceptible to corruption and both legislation and such projects turn out mediocre. When the legislative is given executive-like functions, they compromise their role as fiscalisers of the executive. When the institutional arrangement of checks and balances are subverted, the public is at the mercy of whoever is in power. With or without its corruption, the pork barrel and its irrationality have no place in a modern political system. Indeed, the hallmark of a great president is not in his use of discretionary funds to bribe the legislative into cooperation, but it lies in his negotiating skills that follow democratic institutions to direct the country to greater heights. Now, by this standard, one begins to question—how great of a president is PNoy? It is high time he proves himself worthy of high approval ratings and abolishes the pork barrel in its entirety.

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