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영어

Since the collapse of the Marcos regime in 1986 democratization movement led to the Constitution of 1987 and Local Government Code of 1991 which have served as an institutional foundation for comprehensive decentralization reform in the Philippines. The political, administrative and fiscal decentralization are included in the reform, in particular, while the citizen participation was virtually improved as a way of the political decentralization reform. Due to the reform mentioned above it is noticeable to discover civil society organizations proper significantly since 1991 and their impacts on the development of local governance. In this study local governance of the Philippines was analyzed in two different perspectives: the structural and the procedural aspects which presumably correspond to the quantity and the quality of citizen participation. In the former perspective the quantity of citizen participation was very much increased and made great contribution to the growth of local governance. In the latter view, contradictory conclusions were drawn. Some civil society organizations such as the Center for Popular Empowerment have been very active in conceiving and promoting various programs and events for developing urban governance. In particular, their activities has been focused on the urban poor. To the contrary, citizen participation in the governmental committees and boards has served as a symbol of rhetoric rather than substantial contribution. This is an evidence that local governance in the Philippines has been still affected by a small group of junta characterized by the traditional local elites. To deal with the local patronage with a high level of citizen participation would be a final task in the process of developing local governance in the Philippines.