Vol. 34 Nos. 3-4 (July-December 2013)
UNITED NATIONS
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION NETWORK
UNPAN is an international network linking national,
regional and international organizations and
institutions across the globe to promote better public
administration.
EROPA is one of the Online Regional Centers of
UNPAN. For more information about the network, visit
www.unpan.org.
Government (Institutions...)
(From page 18)
to revitalize the central
district have been
ongoing,
particularly the
adoption of a city
ordinance to make
the city a beautiful
community through
landscaping,
promotion of green
projects, environmental
cleaning, and designation of smoking areas, among
others. The landscaping policy of the city aims to
revitalize the Ritsurin Garden by regulating outdoor
advertisements to preserve sceneries. Towards the
promotion of a creative city, the bureau targets
the industry, culture and arts, tourism, sports and
international exchange. Prof. Ohnishi introduced
several tourism resources and sightseeing spots in
the area. He also shared the future nursing care or
a regional comprehensive care system that will be
established to complement the efforts to revitalize the
community. In summary, he highlighted the need to
promote decentralization, change regional community,
and create a community focused on creativity and
cooperation.
EROPA Bulletin
19
How to Change
Subnational Territories:
Cases of Provincial
Division and Municipal
Merger in the
Philippines
Mr. Michael Tumanut
of the University of the
Philippines highlighted
the recent significant increase in the number of firsttier administrative units in
selected Asian and African countries. He then noted
that decentralization has been invoked by many
policymakers to justify their
preference to change territories. His presentation
examined the causes and mechanisms of territorial
change using several cases of both successful and
failed attempts of provincial division and municipal
merger in the Philippines. He considered the
local government as an institution or set of rules
that constrains action and transactions within its
jurisdiction. He then argued that territorial change
is an outcome of the interplay of institutional
disequilibrium, policy stability, conformance to rules,
and, more importantly, a perfect coalition among veto
players. Moreover, he argued that perfect coalition is
a function of the confluence of the policy entrepreneur,
the united position of local elites, and social
movement, through the mechanisms of advocacy,
political mobilization, cuing/mirroring, norm of
reciprocity, as well as bounded rationality at the
individual-level analysis. His conclusion highlighted
the salience of both formal and informal rules (i.e.,
norms), as well as that of agency (policy entrepreneur)
and structure (rules). When asked about the criteria
of reform for merger and division, he responded that
regardless of manner (merger or division), the Local
Government Code and its implementing rules and
regulations provide for the criteria and requirements
(particularly income and land area or population) to
create a new local government in the Philippines.
The definition of success and failure of territorial
change, being that of attempt and not impact, was also
clarified.