Philippines | 4 March 2021
PHILIPPINES | 4 MARCH 2021 Philippines Authors1: Ronald Castillo, Karl Ramos, Jasmine Alarde, Eduardo Fajermo About ICLD The Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) is part of the Swedish Introduction development cooperation. The mandate of the organisation is to contribute to poverty alleviation The Philippines boasts a legal framework of by strengthening local governments. decentralization through local autonomy, This report covers events up to 25 November 2020. decentralization, and devolution. However, there Events occurring after this period are not considered. are backdoors which pose potential hindrance within the system. For one, the prevalence of identifies the units of local government and tasks 2 the national legislature to devolve undelegated money politics in the form of pork barrel often 3 makes local government officials subservient to powers to local governments. The local officials of the national government. Second, the government units (hereafter called local unitary system, even with its local autonomy governments) are provinces, cities, municipalities, mandate, begins by having placed the center of and barangays. Republic Act No. 7160 also power to the national government situated in the known as the Local Government Code (LGC) Republic’s capital, Manila, and the Metropolis to enacted in 1991 assigns the functions and powers which it belongs. The moniker imperial manila was of local governments. Local autonomy is a state born out of this power imbalance. Education, policy in the constitution (Article II, Section 25) health, finance, and development are also that enables local governments and its concentrated in this geopolitical space causing constituents to actively participate in matters local migration, transient populations, and concerning their immediate locality and at the congestion within Metro Manila.
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