Philippine Journal of Public Administration

[WORKING PAPER ALERT!]

For many Indigenous communities in the Philippines, oral healthcare has become a long-standing concern in public administration and governance. This latest release of the NCPAG Working Papers, titled "Bridging the Gap: Oral Health Inequities among the Dumagat-Remontado of Tanay, Rizal," features the insights of UP NCPAG MPA student, Ma. Rochelle B. Javier, a dentist and public health practitioner who has witnessed firsthand the difficulties faced by Indigenous communities in oral healthcare.

Javier argues that the core of the problem lies in a severe structural maldistribution of resources and fragmented governance. While national statistics boast an impressive dentist-to-population ratio of 1:3,500, government dentists are heavily concentrated in urban centers, that the ratio skyrockets to over 1:100,000 in Indigenous communities. As a result, remote Dumagat villages are left without dental professionals to serve them. This geographic isolation is further exacerbated by rigid, top-down health programs that fail to account for unique perspectives and health practices of the Dumagat and intergenerational knowledge gaps. Meanwhile, key local and national public health agencies frequently operate in isolated silos. This lack of coordination results in sporadic, project-based dental missions that provide only temporary relief. Javier's study argues that health agencies serving Indigenous communities must shift toward the principles of New Public Administration and participatory governance. Javier suggests integrating oral health into Ancestral Domain development plans and training local Dumagat youth as active co-producers of health through a Community Dental Aide program to help build a more equitable and sustainable healthcare model in Indigenous communities.

Read the full paper through this link: https://bit.ly/NCPAGWP2026-01

**NEW ARTICLE ALERT!**
Special Section - Research Note

Digital Governance and Tourism Promotion: An Exploratory Study of Social Media Strategies in Philippine Local Government Units

by Marie Christine P. Chan-Tayo and Reginald G. Ugaddan
University of the Philippines Diliman

Tourism contributes to income growth, employment generation, and citizen’s quality of life. In the Philippines, local governments employ tourism promotion and development strategies, including social media and other online platforms, to maximize revenue growth. While digital platforms are integrated with promoting and developing local tourism, local governments still need to see their contribution to local revenue growth. The study evaluates digital platforms, such as social media accounts, websites, tourist inflows, and tourism-related revenue generation. Employing content analysis, the study collected data from 50 local government units from the 2023 Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index in the Philippines. An inventory of all social media and online platforms, the data on regional and inbound travelers, and local non-tax revenue collection of the 50 cities and municipalities were analyzed. The study’s findings reveal that local governments actively engage citizens via digital platforms for information dissemination, but they are yet to be fully maximized towards tourism promotion. Highly urbanized cities and first to fourth class municipalities showing high influx of tourists also reported high local revenue collection. Research findings provide insights into promoting local tourism by employing digital platforms and contributing to local revenue growth. The practical implications of the study are also discussed.

The full article can be viewed at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19230202

**NEW ARTICLE ALERT!**

Special Section - Policy Note

National Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plans: Paths European Countries Can Consider Going Forward

by Peter Mameli
John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Abstract. This paper examines the future of National Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plans in European countries. With many beginning to view COVID-19 management as normalizing, there has been an ongoing interest in learning how to improve public health infrastructure and response for related matters going forward. As the 2024-2025 flu season proved to be a significant one on the continent, the notion of pandemic planning has further moved to the forefront of policy, planning, and implementation concerns. To date, there appears to have been a variety of differing approaches to flu pandemics among the countries that have made their designs public. A review of causal factors that have limited the success of influenza pandemic plans in the past, as well as framing the findings using policy theories that can help inform the analysis, would allow for consideration of four different paths forward: creating state-focused plans for individual pathogens and specific emergency settings, looking towards all-hazard public health structures that include influenza pandemic planning, establishing whole-system civil emergency response procedures, and developing top-hazard public health planning that includes influenza pandemic response.

The full article can be viewed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18884829

FROM THE ARCHIVES:

Virtual Issue No. 2026-01: Citizenship and Deliberative Democracy

On February 25 this year, we commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the EDSA People Power Revolution. For PA scholars and practitioners, the EDSA Revolution is more than a historical bookend to roughly two decades of dictatorial rule, eventually dismantled by collective consciousness and will of the Filipino people. Rather, EDSA remains the catalyst of the redemocratization project that has shaped Philippine PA and governance through the years. This virtual issue explores how the enduring ideals of the “People Power,” i.e., citizen participation and deliberative democracy, transformed into concrete strategies and emerging areas for reform.

Read the virtual issue here: sites.google.com/up.edu.ph/pjpa-vi-2026-01/home

**NEW ARTICLE ALERT!**

Air Transport Governance in the Philippines from the Lens of New Institutional Theory

by Doreen R. Zules

This study examines the evolution of air transport regulation in the Philippines through new institutional theory, focusing on the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP). It aims to analyze air transport regulation using the institutional theory lens, assess CAAP’s institutional logics and complexities through Besharov and Smith’s framework, and evaluate organizational strategies for reforming Philippine aviation governance. Findings reveal that CAAP’s legitimacy rests on both coercive (global safety compliance) and normative pressures (internal professionalization). CAAP operates within overlapping logics—state (regulation), professional (competence), market (efficiency), and community (accountability). While state logic dominates, conflicts emerge from CAAP’s multiple roles. The most critical tension lies in its investigatory function: CAAP investigates incidents despite being both regulator and operator, raising concerns over impartiality, public trust, and adherence to international safety standards. To address these complexities, the study recommends decoupling CAAP’s conflicting roles, guided by comparative lessons from Southeast Asia and Ghana. Supporting legislative proposals for structural separation is crucial to strengthening legitimacy, enhancing accountability, and aligning Philippine aviation governance with international best practices. Institutional restructuring is therefore essential for ensuring safer, more credible, and globally compliant air transport regulation in the Philippines.

The full article can be viewed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17731946

The unprogrammed appropriations have recently gained recognition after being used as a funding source for some questionable infrastructure projects that are currently under investigation. Asst. Prof. Kim Robert De Leon's paper aims to trace the roots of the unprogrammed appropriations, as a peculiar element of the Philippine budgeting process, its evolution, intended use, and actual utilization as a form of standby authority under the government’s budget. Published information from the Department of Budget and Management was used and analyzed together with available public proceedings about the unprogrammed appropriations. It identified several policy issues on the legal basis and utilization of the unprogrammed appropriations and recommended mechanisms that can take its place for greater fiscal discipline.

For the full paper, kindly check out this link:
https://bit.ly/43xBRYd

𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐕𝐄𝐒

𝐏𝐉𝐏𝐀 𝐕𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞 𝐍𝐨. 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓-𝟎𝟑: 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐮𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐋𝐚𝐰

Presented in this virtual issue is the 1979 Special Volume on Corruption of the PJPA edited by and composed largely of articles written by members of the NCPAG faculty. The goal of this virtual issue is twofold: to take part in the University’s Day of Remembrance of Martial Law, happening every year on September 21, and to contribute to the renewed public conversation (and outrage) on the perennial problem of corruption.

Corruption as an area of study has long been a focus of academic research at NCPAG. It was one of the major problems identified by the Bell Mission of 1950 that recommended, among others, the establishment of the College (then known as the Institute of Public Administration) in 1952. But the commitment to this field of scholarship entered a crucial juncture during the Martial Law years. In this period of intellectual ferment and public unrest, faculty members and researchers of the College made a consolidated and concerted effort to study corruption, which culminated in the research project “Negative Bureaucratic Behavior in the Philippines: Causes, Consequences and Control Measures” in 1975.

The research was pivotal in developing the College’s intellectual and institutional tradition in at least two ways. First, it bravely took on a controversial and sensitive topic at a time and in an environment hostile to critical thought. Tapales (2017) recalled that the publication of the project's final report as a special issue of the Philippine Journal of Public Administration in 1979 was a bold move, considering that the dictatorship was still in power. Years later, NCPAG faculty members would also take part in mass actions that led to the overthrow of the Marcos administration, going out of their offices to join the protests on the streets.

Second, the research project proposed key theoretical and ideological positions regarding both corruption as a subject and scholarship as a social practice. Project leaders Raul de Guzman and Ledivina Carino, for example, stated their strong objection to the revisionist discourse on corruption that emerged from the West during this period. This view advanced the idea that corruption plays a conduit role at the early stages of a country's national development, but will die a natural death as a country moves closer to economic progress. Cariño and de Guzman declared: “Our study of corruption in the Philippines convinces us that the revisionist school is at the least un-enlightened, if not wrong” (1979, p. 368).

Equally remarkable in this undertaking is the tone and language that the editors, both intellectual pillars of NCPAG, adopted to articulate the idea of the College’s abiding commitment to critical thought and nation-building. In their foreword, Cariño and de Guzman emphasized that the project underscores the College’s “desire to manifest its commitment to significant moral and political issues” (1979, p. i) before finishing with a telling and meaningful concluding statement:

“Thus although we hope these papers would be able to contribute to the universal literature on bureaucratic behavior, we also believe that our first responsibility is to the illumination of the dynamics of the behavior of civil servants and the improvement of the performance of the bureaucracy in the Philippines” (Cariño & de Guzman, 1979, p.iv).

Access the volume here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/10mCkKCWLNS7CbFx5QpV01ZLKkcNh3-mZ/view?usp=sharing

References:

Cariño, L., & de Guzman, R. (1979). Negative bureaucratic behavior in the Philippines: The final report of the IDRC Philippine Team. Philippine Journal of Public Administration, 23(3-4), 350-385.

Tapales, P.D. (2017). 1965-1971: Institution building for good governance. In N. Pilar (Ed.), UP NCPAG on the wings of change: 65 years of shaping the Philippine public administration and governance discourse (pp.21-40). UP NCPAG.

**NEW ARTICLE ALERT!**

Data Management in Local Disaster Risk Reduction-Climate Change Adaptation in the Philippines: Scenarios and Strategies

by Xavier Venn A. Asuncion, Gerard Martin C. Suarez, Lourdes V. Santos, and Reginald G. Ugaddan

Within the administrative structure of the Philippine government, local government units (LGUs) play a crucial role as frontline agencies for disaster risk reduction - climate change adaptation (DRRCCA). However, many LGUs continue to struggle with data management, an essential component of effective DRR-CCA interventions. This study explores this challenge by examining emerging trends and issues in the local DRR-CCA data management landscape through a futures thinking lens, adding value to the existing body of knowledge by looking into a myriad of factors that affect data management for local DRR-CCA and by systematically imagining and describing potential future scenarios. Drawing from literature reviews and key informant interviews, the study identifies five key driving forces—or influential factors—that affect local DRR-CCA data management: institutional capacity, level of digital technology diffusion, standards for data management, the digital divide, and emerging technologies. These factors served as the foundation for developing potential future scenarios, including a preferred scenario, along with corresponding goals and strategies for the year 2050 that can guide future institutional and policy reforms. These outputs were validated through consultations with scholars and practitioners via email interviews.

The full article can be viewed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17074858

**NEW ARTICLE ALERT!**

Analysis of Loss and Damage in Philippine Agriculture Due to Natural Hazards: Evidence-Based Policy Recommendations for Climate Adaptation

by Saturnina C. Halos, Alicia G. Ilaga, and Abraham J. Manalo

The Philippines is highly vulnerable to natural hazards, especially typhoons, floods, and droughts. This study analyzed Department of Agriculture (DA) data from 2011 to 2020 to assess the impact of six hazard types—typhoons, floods, moisture stress, pests and diseases, earthquakes, and volcanic activity—on the agriculture sector. Loss and damage reports were compiled under the DA’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Operations Manual. Using descriptive statistics, frequency mapping, and index calculations, the study quantified commodity-specific losses and provincial hazard exposure. Climate-related hazards accounted for about 99% of the PHP295 billion in total losses, with typhoons alone responsible for PHP262 billion (88%). Rice was the most affected crop, with over PHP112 billion in losses, primarily due to typhoons and flooding. Luzon provinces experienced the highest frequency of typhoons, followed by parts of the Visayas and Mindanao. These findings underscore the urgent need for targeted adaptation strategies, such as adjusting planting calendars, improving disaster response funding, and promoting climate-resilient farming practices. The study provides strong empirical support for policy reforms aimed at reducing the impacts of extreme weather events on food security and agricultural productivity in one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world.

The full article can be viewed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16893150

**NEW ARTICLE ALERT!**

We are delighted to announce the publication of the first article for Volume 69 (2025) of the PJPA.

**Business Enterprises Act of 2002: A Policy Evaluation Using National-Level Data**

by Deemee Shawn P. Manalo and Lianne Angelico C. Depante

While micro, small, and medium enterprises are widely considered the backbone of the Philippine economy, their potential to contribute more to development is often hindered by high levels of informality. To help address the issue of enterprise informality, the government enacted the Barangay Micro-business Enterprises (BMBEs) Act of 2002, with the aim of formalizing microenterprises through the provision of incentives. Using data from a national-level census of BMBEs and business counselors directly involved in the implementation of the law, this study sought to evaluate the BMBE Law vis-à-vis its goal of reducing informality. In doing so, it focused on evaluating business registration, incentives, and benefits received by the BMBEs, impact on microenterprises’ formalization rate, and impact on BMBEs’ business operations and development. Results from the descriptive statistics reveal that the law has been largely ineffective in addressing informality and fostering microenterprise development. In this light, this study recommends policy amendments to account for the recent enactment of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law, administrative burdens, and conflicting regulatory priorities. However, given the lengthy legislative amendment process, a more immediate approach would be for implementing agencies to update the implementing rules and regulations and conduct awareness campaigns to enhance the policy’s reach and impact.

The full article can be viewed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15796587