EROPA Bulletin Volume 34 Nos. 3-4 | Page 24

24 EROPA Bulletin Government (Institutions...) (From page 23) administered to 120 respondents showed that more than half of the participants considered S&T an important part of the budget. Mr. Aminullah suggested that Indonesia replicate the level of investments that other ASEAN countries allot for S&T, and he encouraged the assistance and contributions of the private sector to S&T. Mr. Aminullah recommended that his research study can be expanded to include not just ASEAN countries but also other EROPA member institutions and individuals. This, according to him, would strengthen linkages among EROPA member countries and organizations. In response to the question on why the private sector in Indonesia is hesitant to invest in science and technology, Mr. Aminullah explained that certain policies in Indonesia regulate or constrain S&T investments from private sector, particularly from other countries. On the other hand, Dr. Sukarno Tanggol from the Philippines commented that the need for S&T investments should be highly prioritized by governments in ASEAN. Vol. 34 Nos. 3-4 (July-December 2013) public enterprises were dubbed by Dr. Mendoza as being “financial millstones” and agents of corruption. Dr. Mendoza posited that under the regime of new public management, reforms in the PES and GOCCs were implemented since Corazon Aquino’s administration to improve their performance and eradicate corruption. Changes were specifically made in the areas of policy, financial discipline, compensation reforms, performance evaluation, privatization, and rationalization. Despite these reforms, issues such as weak regulations, absence of a clear authority implementing state ownership and monitoring systems still prevail. She hoped that with the GOCC Governance Act of 2011 and the Governance Commission, with their salient features for combating inefficiencies and corruption in the PES, government reform would soon be attained. Nonlinear Effects of Citizen Satisfaction In his presentation, Professor Yu Noda discussed the multidimensional Enhancing Trust and Performance in the Philippine relationship between Public Enterprise Sector: A Revisit of Recent public service delivery Reforms and Transformations and citizen satisfaction. Noda posited that Dr. Maria Fe such relationship goes Villamejor-Mendoza beyond whether the highlighted the citizens are satisfied or current conditions, not, and that citizen opinions on satisfaction are highly performance and subjective and may either be prone to attribution or reforms being instituted assessment errors. He presented the Kano model of in the Philippine marketing, which posits that discrepancies or gaps public enterprise between service delivery and citizen satisfaction (PES) from the year results in non-linear outcomes. According to Professor 2007 until the present. Noda, the model includes other attributes that She related that government-owned and controlled determine satisfaction, classified into the “must-be” corporations (GOCCs) in the Philippines were initially quality elements, which most of public services must established to augment economic weaknesses and fulfill, and the “attractive” quality elements. Based keep away foreign control over the market. However, on results of the survey conducted on 2,997 Japanese GOCCs nowadays confront certain problems residents in Tokyo, Professor Noda pointed out that such as contradictory objectives, severe political in the management of broader regional government influence, poor implementation of regulations, lack services (BRGs) and the basic local government of transparency and accountability, and inefficiency. services (BLGs), clarity of services largely determine Instead of being agents for economic growth, these (Continued on the next page) citizen satisfaction.