Centralization, a backward step

Dispersal of authority through empowerment of constituent units is a basic principle of progressive governance. Through this approach creative implementation of programs and projects is encouraged and because local conditions are taken into consideration wastage of resources is avoided.

This is the rationale of the local Government Code which strengthens governance in local level through power-sharing with higher authorities in the capital city. This is the basis too of the regionalization of government offices in 1975, a move which can be considered a landmark achievement of the discredited Martial Law regime.

Before the regionalization, all authorities emanated from the Manila offices of national agencies. In DepEd (it was DECS then) the operation of all schools in the country was dictated by the "gods" in the national capital who decided what subjects to teach and how, what textbooks to use, what facilities to procure and how. Even the appointments of teachers and officials had to have the imprimatur of Manila bureaucrats, and of course, who got promoted to what was also dictated from "above."

Such scenario was also obtaining among other national offices-until the creation of regional offices. With this innovation the regional offices of various national agencies have become the centers of operation, and the regional directors started to perform certain levels of functions which were heretofore done by Manila officials. Needless to say, this strategy made public offices more responsive to the needs of the people in the provinces and cities outside the southern Luzon diaspora.

To be sure, there were functions that were kept centralized. In DepEd, for instance, the curriculums in all levels were crafted in the central office, and that office too was the decision maker of how many teachers and officials would be assigned to what areas as well as what books and learning equipment to purchase and for what price.

More serious was the centralized payroll service, a system which entrusted the printing and distribution of the salary checks of all the teachers and school personnel in the country to the Payroll Services Division (PSD) which held office in Harrison Street, Manila. This was a very inefficient way of paying salaries because pertinent papers had to be collected from all schools and offices in the country before salary checks could be printed. As a result, delays happened and discrepancies in the amounts involved frequently occurred.

Moreover, new teachers had to suffer being unpaid for several months, even for one year or more, the reason why some teachers had to go to Manila to do follow-up work, an expensive thing to do, of course. Surprisingly, this system endured for more than fifty years even as secretaries of education came and faded away. It continued, that is, until 2004 after then Congressman Jose R. Gullas moved heaven and earth, so to speak, to have the payroll service office regionalized. Now more than half a million teachers and non-teaching personnel enjoy the convenience and satisfaction of a decentralized salary office, one which speeds up salary payments done right in places accessible to stakeholders.

It has been ten years since this decentralized payroll system has been adopted. Will it endure for another decade or decades?

The bad news is that there are plans of the current leadership to centralize (again?) the payroll system of all national government agencies under one office, the DBM.

Once this happens, the very problems experienced by DepEd teachers and employees will once again recur: delayed payment, erroneous payment, unauthorized deductions, non-refund of over-deductions, delayed issuance of clearance for retirees and many other difficulties inherent in a highly centralized bureaucracy. And to think that this will affect millions of national government employees!

Actually, it's not only in the area of salary payments that centralization moves are creeping back into Philippine bureaucracy. Recently, for example, the licensing of firearms is now being done in Manila instead of in PNP's regional offices, and foreign students who apply for study permits for their stint in local  schools have to go the BOI office also in that city.

Certainly, centralization is a swing back to the old inefficient system of governance. It is retrogressive, to say the least.