LOCAL GOVERNMENT DISCRETION AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN PHILIPPINES

摘要

Philippines has an exhaustive decentralization code providing local governments with a high degree of discretion. But the concurrent upward and downward accountability mechanisms are weak resulting in inefficiency and ineffectiveness of local governments. We employ a diagnostic framework to analyse local governments' discretion and accountability in political, administrative and fiscal domains. We find that the entrenched culture of power accumulation and patronage-within which decentralization operates-has resulted in elite capture at the local level. This along with lack of capacity at national and local levels has caused serious impediments in downward accountability of local governments.