Governance is the “act or process of overseeing the control and direction of something”. It pertains not only to the government but to any organization that requires managing people and resources to achieve agreed goals.
However, skilled human capital and physical resources are often limited to what certain governance systems must invest to accomplish expected outputs—a measure of governance quality.
For instance, the government can effectively and efficiently function if it has reliable data to make decisions and policies related to development projects.
Given the approved budget and schedule, it can prioritize projects and how these must be implemented and sustained. This process is described as evidence-based governance. Decisions are grounded on established objectives and rigorously generated data as the baseline or results of such decisions.
Evidence-based governance contrasts the practice of decision-making guided by ideology, intuition, individual perception or impression, common sense, partisanship, or stories.
Incidentally, projects that most likely generate votes or conditional employment are preferred, like infrastructures—because these are tangible and visible to people.
Sometimes, specific projects are misunderstood and perceived as unnecessary or misplaced because no data supports or makes those projects publicly known for appreciation.
However, this could not be the case because every local government unit has planning and development departments. They are tasked to provide data and plans to the executives and legislative councils as bases for identifying and implementing priority projects and ordinances.
There are sets of empirical evidence that can be derived from household censuses, random sample surveys, testimonies of authorities, documents of past events, or physical structures.
However, whether all have the capacities and organic personnel to perform the tasks ideally is worthy of self-reflection.
Another question remains: Are the LGUs always guided by their comprehensive development and annual investment plans? Or if these development plans are regularly updated to be responsive to rapid socioeconomic, technological, and environmental changes. I would presume they are.
Public administration literature would suggest that quality data, analytical skills of development planners, and political will to support and use scientific data are crucial elements of evidence-based governance.
Apart from being constantly critical of the government’s performance, higher education institutions can contribute to mainstreaming evidence-based local governance. This is an opportunity that LGUs can maximize.
Higher education institutions have research expertise but are limited by finances, while the LGUs have the budget to commission the former to assess community needs or evaluate specific government interventions.
The LGUs no longer get consultancy firms outside if local higher education institutions are equally capable of generating the needed data. The latter must likewise reach out to the LGUs about research services they can offer or propose projects they may need.
At this point, when the implementing rules and regulations of the Negros Island Region Act are to be designed yet, higher education institutions in the new region can find a place to help in realizing its development agenda. They can be catalysts of change by extending expertise and research services to address the fear of many that the administrative fusion of Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, and Siquijor will only exacerbate political and economic inequality and cultural tension.
It is also befitting for the research units of higher education institutions in the islands of Negros and Siquijor to organize and coordinate their efforts in assisting the new region.
They can help produce reliable and accurate data within their areas and consolidate these into information to secure the growth and future of Region 18.
Or what San Juan Mayor Wilfredo Capundag suggested as the Negros Island-Siquijor Administrative Region (NISAR)—a name that highlights inclusivity, if there is a way for it to be renamed in the Act.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
