PATH Foundation Philippines’ Public Administration PDF

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PATH FOUNDATION PHILIPPINES’ PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION PATH Foundation Philippines Inc. (PFPI) is a non-profit organization that creates innovative projects in family planning, health, and sustainable development. The mission of PFPI is to alleviate poverty, improve reproductive health, and promote sustainable development in the poor areas of the Philippines. They have already worked with different stakeholders to strengthen development efforts in 75 urban cities and rural coastal municipalities in the Philippines (PATH Foundation Philippines Inc., n.d.) PFPI can be used as an example of public administration as governance. The practice of public administration is influenced by the context that “employs it, legitimizes it, and ultimately defines it.” (Miles as cited in Perry & Keller, p. 4, 1991). To understand the public administration of PFPI is to understand first the context that led to the establishment of PFPI. Global population growth rates are not environmentally sustainable. It increases demands for supplies of food, energy, and water and exploitation of those resources due to demand. Acknowledging that there is a relationship between population and environment (populationenvironment linkage) is an important step in fighting global sustainability problems (Council on Foreign Relations, 2011). In the context of the Philippines, in the year 1992, when PFPI was founded and registered under the Philippines Security and Exchange Commissions (SEC), there was at least a total of 63 million people and a total of 1,684,395 births according to the Vital Statistics Report 1992 of the Philippine Statistics Office. In the year 1997, Fidel Ramos mentioned in his speech that his administration faced the challenge of the serious degradation of the Philippines’ environment and the continuous exploitation of its natural resources for economic gain. Fidel Ramos also appointed Angel Alcala, the chairman of PFPI, as the secretary of DENR in 1992. The PFPI contextualized, if seen through the lens of public administration, can be described as an organization that effectively delivers population-health-environment approaches to alleviate the poor and promote environmentally sustainable development in poor and marine protected areas of the Philippines by coordinating with different civil society and business sectors and intensive research. PFPI’s governance revolves around peer-mediated behavior change and developing tools to strengthen the capacity of government/NGO partners through field trials and years of research aligned with their public administration that is pro-poor, pro-health, and pro-environment. The main approach in their projects is the integration of population-health-environment (PHE). PHE tries to decrease the population growth that results in the exploitation of resources through education of reproductive health (RH) and coastal resource management (CRM). Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management (IPOPCORM), their main project, is driven by this approach. Its goal is to improve the lives of communities that depend on coastal resources while maintaining biological diversity and productivity of coastal ecosystems (PFPI, n.d). This project, in collaboration with different NGOs, peoples’ organizations, and LGUs, makes use of RH and CRM interventions (D’agnes, D’agnes, Schwartz, Amarillo & Castro, 2010). The progress of these projects relies on the behavior of the people who undertook the interventions.

PFPI believes that if people are educated about RH and the environment, then it can help in alleviating poverty. This organization is also politics-free even while working with the government sectors. They are conforming to the politics-administration dichotomy or the separation between politics and administration. Their chairman, Angel Alcala, acknowledges the importance of collaboration among private sectors, national and local governments. He said in an interview, “With the support of the private sector, national and local government, and academic institutions, these initiatives will help protect and conserve biodiversity. Without support, it will not be sustained." (Businessmirror, 2017). Various agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development Fund, the ADB, and the United Nations Population Fund supports the cause of PFPI throughout the years (PFPI,n.d). Just like in Gawad Kalinga, its partnership and cooperation with different private sectors, national and local governments, and academic institutions strengthens PFPI. With PFPI described above, it can be said that it conforms to development administration, new administration, and reinventing government. Development administration has slowly become closely related to foreign aid with the idea of guiding developing countries to economic development (Brillantes & Fernandez, 2008). PFPI has seen its share of foreign aid in pursuing their projects. USAID, through the Philippine-American Fund, supported one of their projects called the SEAnergy Project. This project coordinates local government initiatives and unites the community for the effective management of marine protected areas in the Verde Island Passage located in the province of Oriental Mindoro (PFPI, n.d). Development Administration is also an incentive and management of change to seek development aspirations (Gant as cited in Brillantes & Fernandez, 2008). The SEAnergy project initiated changes in Oriental Mindoro through raising awareness and conservation of marine protected areas that will lead to more secure and productive work for the fishermen living near coastal areas. Regarding the new administration, its principles were focused on whether or not a policy involves social equity (Frederickson as cited in Brillantes & Fernandez, 2008). Equity refers to capabilities and opportunities. An example is, everyone should have the access to education (UNDP, 1997). One of their first projects, the AIDS Surveillance and Education Project (ASEP) helped a lot of people, especially people who were victims of AIDS and HIV, to receive help and gain access to services which are normally not accessible to most of them because of lack of knowledge and money. ASEP also expanded the reach of health services to the population at risk of HIV/AIDS in the Philippines and also reached red-light district workers who did not have any access to government services. They referred these individuals to Social Hygiene Clinics for treatment (Aquino, et.al, 2003). There are 7 argued principles in reinventing government: these are, “serve citizens, not customers, seek the public interest, value citizenship over entrepreneurship, think strategically, act democratically, recognize that accountability is not simple, serve rather than steer and value people not just productivity.” (Denhardt & Denhardt as cited in Brillantes & Fernandez, 2008, p.7). Programs of PFPI center around the people, especially the disadvantaged ones - the fishermen, the farmers, the poor, the women, and the youth. PFPI’s pioneer program, Integrated

Population and Coastal Resource Management continues to develop through six extensive years of fieldwork (PFPI, n.d). They seek the interest of the public through improving the environment around the disadvantaged sectors. Path Foundation Philippines Inc. is not the best model for public administration as governance unlike Gawad Kalinga but it’s PHE driven programs are efficient and effective that it’s being used and replicated to several developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region (PFPI, n.d).

References: Aquino, C., D’Agnes, L., Castro, J., Borromeo, M., Gill, K. and Schmidt, K. Best Practices in HIV/AIDS Prevention Education: The AIDS Surveillance and Education Project in the Philippines. Makati City, Philippines: PATH (2003). Bingham, R. D., Bowen, W. M., Chandler, M. O., Cornwell, T. L., DeSario, J. P., Dommel, P. R., Ender, K. L., Felbinger, C. L., Hill, E. W., Kaufman, S., Keating, W. D., Keller, L. F., Krumholz, N., Kuemmel, D. A., Murphy, B. M., Perry, D. C., Rasey, K. P., Rose, R. J., Rubin, H. J., … Whitehead, R. R. (1991). Managing Local Governance: Public Administration in Practice . SAGE Publications, Inc. Brillantes, A., & Fernandez, M. (2008, January). 'Is there a Philippine Public Administration? Or Better Still, For Whom is Philippine Public Administration?' Philippine journal of public administration . https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237658738 BusinessMirror. (2017, August 13). Dr. Angel Alcala is PHL's biodiversity hero. https://businessmirror.com.ph/2017/08/13/dr-angel-alcala-is-phls-bio diversity-hero/ Council on Foreign Relations. (2011). Population and Environment Connections:

The Role of

U.S Family Planning Assistance in U.S Foreign Policy [Working Paper]. https://www.pfpi.org/pdf/CFR_WorkingPaper6_Dabelko.pdf D'Agnes, L., D'Agnes, H., Schwartz, J. B., Amarillo, M. L., & Castro, J. (2010, November 22). Integrated management of coastal resources and human health yields added value: A comparative study in Palawan (Philippines). Environmental Conservation, 37 (4), 398-409. 10.1017/S0376892910000779

PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc. (n.d.). PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc. Retrieved October 19, 2020, from https://www.pfpi.org/ Republic of the Philippines: National Statistics Office. (1996). Vital Statistics Report 1992. UNDP. (1997). Reconceptualising Governance. Discussion Paper 2. New York https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265292783

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