Saturday, August 23, 2008 Roperos: Flexibility By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
ONE of the most frustrating features in public administration for someone involved in it on behalf of management is the feeling of being strait-jacketed by laws, rules, and regulations that govern the agency’s operation.
Various rules and regulations on the operation of government agencies have been passed in good faith by the country’s lawmakers to lend more efficient and effective public service to the citizenry.
However, the accretion of these laws, rules, and regulations across the years has made the person who heads the agency almost unable to lend flexibility to his rendering of services to the public.
Note that the milieu in which an office mandated to serve is dynamic, and does not remain in the same state across the years. There will come a time when the office manager needs a measure of flexibility.
There are situations that require a more innovative and human approach. And so, the manager—or in the case of public offices—the chief of office or the director, or the Cabinet secretary, would need to make decisions “in the exigency” of the service that at times conflict with rules or policies.
Lately, instances of these decisions that went against the Commission on Audit (COA) rules and regulations have been numerous.
The public has learned to look up to the COA for opinion regarding excesses in the disbursement of public funds, or inordinate spending of the people’s taxes. But there were also instances when COA went overboard in enforcing some rules.
One such instance is the recent COA opinion granting “bonus” or “incentive” allowances to the so-called dancing inmates of the provincial jail.
I feel that COA, as government’s “financial police” must strictly abide by laws, rules and regulations on the disbursement of public funds. But it should also be flexible enough to look for the human motive behind the actuation of a public office chief, or director, or manager.
Where the motive or purpose behind the expense is good, COA should allow the same for the greater glory of public service.
I am not saying that COA should be untrue to its oath of public service, or to betray public trust, but it should weigh its loyalty to their oath with imperatives of the public good.
Reform is a primal goal of our penal system. If making the inmates dance before the public would give them a taste of the loving warmth of public acceptance as a step towards reform, then we should let it be.
