The Ateneo de Naga University Graduate School through the MMPA 214-Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Systems Analysis, under the guidance of its Dean, Dr. Malu C. Barcillano, successfully conducted the virtual Academic Exchange on Cross-Border Perspectives on Citizen Empowerment in Naga City, Philippines, and Taichung City in Taiwan. The academic exchange provided the aspiring leaders-including the Master in Public Administration (MPA) students and the Executive Master Program of Public Affairs (EMPA) with administrative and governance knowledge to lead their respective communities towards effective participatory governance.
The master of ceremonies, Nina Ibasco, an MPA student facilitated the academic exchange. Succeeded by the opening message of Dr. Digna Alba, Vice President for Higher Education of Ateneo de Naga University; Prof. Duu-Chiang Wang, Dean of the College of Social Science Tunghai University; and Prof. Jose Chiu-C. Chen, the Director of the Executive Master Program of Public Affairs and President of the Chinese Society for Public Administration (CSPA) of Tunghai University, by all sharing their delightfulness of having this academic exchange to strengthen the foundation of leaders and aspiring administrative leaders.
A ceremonial online signing was thereafter held between Ateneo de Naga University and Tunghai University. It is a formal signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to legally bind and strengthen the connection of the two universities. Afterwards, the ceremonial signing was officially concluded with a virtual group photo.
The academic exchange formally started with the presentation of ADNU MPA students Ms. Xenia Cantes and Maricel Alinarte. Their presentation discussed the local governance mechanism, participatory budgeting, and citizen empowerment practices in Naga City.
The discussion expressed the resilience of Naga City in confronting development challenges through good urban governance. Naga City governance has core pillars: progressive development perspective; functional partnership; and participation. The first pillar displayed the importance of leaders creating sustainable plans to counter present and future adversities to established development, guaranteeing the welfare of the community. Moreover, to continuously support and establish such plans, the government needs to build economic resiliency by utilizing diverse industries instead of relying on a single economic sector. The next pillar emphasizes the importance of collaborating with different agencies, organizations, sectors, and communities to optimize resources in innovative management and strategic planning to enrich the growth of the local government. Last is participation, the core of participatory governance, which promotes the partner-beneficiary concept. This core ensures the inclusion of individuals and the community in decision-making to generate sustainability, mutual understanding, and a strategic approach.
Additionally, the discussion also exhibits the eagerness of the Naga Government to serve the community with transparency, accountability, and participatory governance through I-governance. I- governance, provide guidelines to ease government transactions for citizens and access to government information including budgeting and financial utilization. Furthermore, it encourages engagement through innovative approaches while continuously improving government services through constructive feedback from individuals.
Later, Prof. Chen presented Taiwan’s perspective on civic engagement, community building, and academic integration in Taichung City. The presentation highlighted the way of addressing the “collective action problem”. The collective action problem of a society refers to the non-cooperation of individuals due to their personal interest outweighing the common goal of the community. Accordingly, Prof. Chen emphasized the significance of Government intervention to address the aforementioned challenge because it impacts the cooperation of the people. Government intervention will create centrality and administer cooperation through the enforcement of rules, norms, and strategies, which can help break down the selfish behavior of individuals or groups of individuals. Enforcement of laws and providing third-party enforcement is a good systematic guide to cope with such problems because it manages the behavior of individuals that threaten the desired common goods.
Subsequent to the successful interchange of informative presentations from both Cities is the cross-border exchange and open discussions with academic scholars, local officials, and other attendees. Among the important discussions was the approach made by the Naga City Government, assuring that individual or sectoral needs are addressed by the government. Dr. Marshal Murillo, Director of the Global Engagement Office and MPA faculty, gave his insight on the discussion by providing the concept of project prioritization. Project prioritization is a strategic approach by the government that selects and ranks the projects and programs proposed based on their urgency, significance, and benefits to society to maximize the utilization of funds for the welfare of the public. Dr. Malu, further explained the process of identifying the programs to be implemented by using AIP and the participation of different sectoral leaders by proposing projects that will benefit their respective sectors.
The above core insight by Dr. Marshal and Dr. Malu formally concluded the program. Hence, moving to the future course for the cross-border partnership.
The conduct of such erudite cross-border partnership within countries that employ participatory governance is beneficial in strategic planning and improving governance. The exchange of ideas, empowerment policies, leader and governments’ approaches provides knowledge and lessons that can be employed to solve shared urban challenges. In addition, it strengthens solidarity and guides the evaluation of practices to establish the most effective and efficient approach in confronting community adversities.
Prepared by:
Ara Franchesca G. Noora
MPA Student
