1. GIVE FIVE (5) DEFINITIONS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION.

i.

Public administration is the implementation of government

policies, determining the policies and programs of
governments, specifically, the planning, organizing,
directing, coordinating, and controlling of government
operations.

ii.

Public administration
application of law.

iii.

Public
administration
is
concerned
with
the
implementation of government policy, and is an academic
discipline that studies this implementation and prepares
civil servants for working in the public service.

iv.

Public administrationis centrally concerned with the

organization of government policies and programmes as
well as the behavior of officials formally responsible for
their conduct.

v.

Public administration is a public instrument whereby

democratic society may be more completely realized. This
implies that it must relate itself to concepts of justice,
liberty, and fuller economic opportunity for human beings
and is thus concerned with people, with ideas, and with
things.

is

detailed

and

systematic

2. DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION AND

PRIVATE ADMINISTRATION.
Public
administration
is
different
from
private
administration in three important aspects, the first is the political
character, secondly the breadth of scope, impact and
consideration and public accountability.
Public
administration
is
bureaucratic
while
private
administration is business like. Public administration is political
while private administration is apolitical. And finally, the aspect
most of us would swear by that public administration is characterized
by red tape while the private administration is free of it.
Public administration functions on service intuition while the
private administration follows the business intuition. They also
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have different purposes to serve, with different needs, values and

objectives. Both of them make different kind of contribution to the
society as well. The way the performance and results are measured
is different in a public administration than that of private one.

3. DISCUSS THE ECOLOGY OR ENVIRONMENT OF PUBLIC

ADMINISTRATION.
In our life, we make decisions. It is an activity that we do
throughout the course of our lifetime. The kind of decision that we
make and that nature of the options that we consider reflects our level
of maturity and the can be attributed to an array of external factors in
which we become engaged as we grow older. When we were younger,
we make decisions as arbitrarily as it can be. We decide what toys we
want, we select our friends, or we decide what scheme we will be using
in order to win a game. Our decisions at this stage provide no
justification, and we dont bother to give an explanation why we
choose such option or why we decide to do such act. When we become
more mature, we begin to become conscious of our physical and
overall appearance as we gain understanding of the society which we
are in.
We soon begin to learn that our decisions and behavior affect the
way people perceive or interact with us. Thus, we become more
responsive to both the positive and negative remarks about our
behavior and general appearance by the people around us it could be
out family, our friends, or even teachers. We define our behavior as we
interact with these people in such a way that we gain acceptance and
a sort of good feedback from them. In so doing, we avoid doing things
that might offend or hurt the feelings of someone close to us. We
develop our notion of what is good and what is bad, according to how
we are being nurtured by our society starting from our homes, to our
schools and the community. We soon realize that we are a part of a
bigger society, the one that goes beyond our circle of family, our circle
of friends, or even our school gates. We begin to recognize the role of
the government and learn the mode or nature of its operations or the
manner of its implementation of policies will, in one way or another,
affect our decisions and behavior. Nevertheless, these laws and
policies implemented by the government have inescapably governed
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our behavior and the bitter consequences of punishment that awaits in

violating makes us abide by them.
Not only in the way we interact with other people and with the
society around us are our decisions based. Most importantly, we decide
what we think will turn out to be more beneficial or satisfying to us.
Even so, our personal choices and decisions concerning our own
private life can still be influenced or affected by the interrelationships
existing among all these various factors, sometimes to the extent that
these influences and external considerations may override our
personal inclination and our motivation may be overlooked. A fresh
high school graduate, for example, who decided not to continue
education in college and instead go for work may be so because of his
familys poor economic status. It could be that his parents may no
longer be capable of supporting his higher studies or that he is willing
to do so because he wanted to give way for and support financially his
younger siblings to finish their studies. The decision of the student will
probably be different had he been in a financially stable family, such
that he may want to pursue his college. In both cases, we can see how
the conditions of the environment have affected the personal decision
of individuals. Such conditions may either be favorable or unfavorable
to the desires of the individual. While favorable conditions may
facilitate for the pursuance of ones decisions, unfavorable conditions
in the environment may restrain it.
Needless to say, the general environment that surrounds us has
an inevitable impact with the way we make our decisions as we
interact with it. In the same way, our decisions also affect the general
environment. In this interaction between individual and the
surrounding environment, a mutual relationship and interdependence
can be observed.
The nature and characteristics of decision-making in
public administration is not far from that of personal decisionmaking which had been discussed above. The primary bureaucratic
institution of public administration the government considers a
number of factors before it can come up with certain policy
implementation or course of action. John M. Gaus called these factors
the ecology of public administration. The adequate knowledge
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about ecology, according to him, is essential in the study of public

administration. A much wider discipline than Economics, Ecology
deals with the interrelationships existing between and among living
organisms and their environment. The general environment in which
public administration operates is its ecology. Hence there is the
assumption that environmental change determines the nature of public
administration, especially in the field of decision-making.
Charles A. Bard have formulated and presented a number of
axioms or maxims regarding public administration in the governmental
level as they are linked with the conditions bringing about
environmental change. In these seven axioms, he made a depiction on
how the positive characteristics of government bureaucracy are
essential to accommodate the changes in the society as it becomes
more complex. Such an efficient and continuous performance of
government duties and functions then become the foundation of any
great society. In the flows and discharge of these functions, John M.
Gaus have enumerated several ecological factors which he perceives
to be affecting the manner in which the government responds to the
changes in its general environment. These are people, place, physical
technology, social technology, wishes and ideas, catastrophe, and
personality. The interplay of these seven ecological factors to the
dynamics of an administrative system in the government aids in
explaining its past actions, as well as in predicting and determining
possible courses of action it might embark in the future.
We can begin to analyze how the interrelationships of all these
factors consequently affect the performance and decision-making
activities of a government administrative system by observing the
local setting in the Philippine public administration. The problem of
overpopulation and population congestion in most urban areas like
Metro Manila, for instance, are a result of the interplay of two
ecological factors; people and place. Majority of our populations are
composed of the depressed and less educated people situated in the
provinces and do not who do not know anything about family planning.
I have observed that the poor people in depressed areas are more
likely to have more children and bigger families as compared with the
size of the families of those with a relatively higher economic status. In
the problem of overpopulation, the key playing factor is the people. In
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such cases, the government eventually responds in such a way as to

slow down the rapid growth of population. This could be in the form of
proper and intensive information drive about family planning or though
proper sex education, so as to avoid huge percentage of the population
mostly composed of the youth in engaging in early and pre-marital sex.
In other countries like China, they haveadopted a two-child policy
encouraging its citizens to have not more than two children by giving
them incentives.
On the other hand, the problem of population congestion may be
attributed to the fact that the ecological factors people and places are
inextricably interwoven. It has been observed that during the past few
decades, the movement of people from the provinces to the cities
particularly in Metro Manila had been tremendous as a result of
peoples search for grater opportunity as these urban areas become
the center for industry and thus job opportunities. It has its prevalent
effects in the general population throughout the country, in a sense
that more people are now concentrated in urban areas. Consequently,
this will produce a chain of institutional changes. Because there is a
physical exhaustion of available utility resources in densely populated
areas, the problems of resources depletion and improper waste
management may arise. Such environmental changes, it is said, are
coercive in their effect upon public administration and decisionmaking. In this respect, a wide variety of options and alternative
course of actions might come out and the government must pick out
the best possible solution considering the external factors that relates
to the problem.
The recent technological advancements have also brought
significant impacts on Philippine public administration. With the advent
of computers and information technology comes a new approach to
public service which offers greater convenience and efficiency to the
people. The automation use of computerized system have facilitated
well in the continuous and effective discharge of the administrative
functions of the government, although it, too, inevitably generates new
problems in the society. Nevertheless the development in the society
paves the way for changes in the social order. This is what is referred
to as social technology. As the social order develops to allow for more
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complex human relationships, the government also changes to adopt

for a more complex societal structure.
The next factor is considered to be the subtlest one: wishes and
ideas. According to this, an individuals thinking and ideas about a
certain administrative order will have a coercive effect upon his or her
political decisions.
Catastrophe is another ecological factor that must be put into
consideration. It can be political or natural. History has told that the
Philippines have undergone major political catastrophe which had
challenged the stability and strength of the government. On can cite
easily the case of late president Ferdinand Marcos when he declared
and martial law, which many considers an outright deprivation of
democracy and an abuse ofpower. Now we are on the verge of an
economic crisis which can also be considered a catastrophe.
Catastrophes can also be natural which are caused by calamities such
as typhoon and volcanic eruption a king of catastrophe that hit the
country in the most frequent manner. Both can have a destructive
affects if not solved properly and immediately. The capacity of the
government to handle these desperate situations is reflective of its
stability and strong leadership. In as much as we learn from our bad
experiences, the government must learn from the catastrophes it had
undergone so that it will know what to do when parallel situations
arise.
Among all the factors the most important to consider is
personality. It is the people, not the public administration nor the
society themselves who shapes the system. If every individual has in
himself a sense of cooperative discipline and if every public officials
are honest and committed to their jobs, then I think our government
will be effective and our society will progress. It is therefore the task of
every citizen to make his country a better place. It is the task, as
John M. Gaus says, in short of politics. The task will be more fruitfully
performed if the citizen and heis agents in public offices, understand
the ecology of government I believe that change first must come from
below, from ourselves, from our homes, before it can reach at the
societal level in which every public administrator is molded by proper
values. I believe that if the environment is conducive, the effectiveness
and efficiency of the government can be maximized
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4. SHOW THE ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE OF THE

NATIONAL GOVERNMENT (i.e., the Government of the
Republic of the Philippines)

5. WHAT IS REPUBLIC ACT NO. 6713? WHAT ARE THE EIGHT

NORMS OF CONDUCT OF PUBLIC OFFICIALS AND
EMPLOYEES?
Republic Act No. 6713, otherwise known as the Code of
Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and
Employees was passed by the Senate and the House of
Representatives on October 21, 1988 and February 1, 1989,
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respectively and approved on February 20, 1989. The law took effect
on March 25, 1989 after its publication in the Official Gazette. The
proponents of the law were Senators Jovito Salonga and Rene V.
Saguisag. The Civil Service Commission (CSC) was tasked to
promulgate and enforce this law. On April 2, 1989, the implementing
rules of the Code was issued by the Commission.
Republic Act No. 6713 as well as its Implementing Rules covers
all officials and employees in the government, elective and appointive,
permanent or temporary, whether in the career or non-career service,
including military and police personnel, whether or not they receive
compensation, regardless of amount.
The following are the eight norms of conduct of public officials
and employees, to wit:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Commitment to Public Interest

Professionalism
Justness and Sincerity
Political Neutrality
Responsiveness to the Public
Nationalism and Patriotism
Commitment to Democracy
Simple Living

6. WHAT IS THE PETERS PRINCIPLES?

The Peter Principle is a concept in management theory
formulated by Laurence J. Peter in which the selection of a candidate
for a position is based on the candidate's performance in their current
role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus,
employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform
effectively, and "managers rise to the level of their incompetence."
In an organizational structure, assessing an employee's potential
for a promotion is often based on their performance in the current job.
This eventually results in their being promoted to their highest level
of competence and potentially then to a role in which they are not
competent, referred to as their "level of incompetence". The employee
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has no chance of further promotion, thus reaching their career's ceiling

in an organization.
Peter suggests that "In time, every post tends to be occupied by
an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties" and [the
corollary] that "work is accomplished by those employees who have
not yet reached their level of incompetence." He coined the
term hierarchiology as the social science concerned with the basic
principles of hierarchically organized systems in the human society.
He noted that their incompetence may be because the required
skills are different, but not more difficult. For example, an excellent
engineer may be a poor manager because they might not have
the interpersonal skills necessary to lead a team.
Rather than seeking to promote a talented "super-competent"
junior employee, Peter suggested that an incompetent manager may
set them up to fail or dismiss them because they are likely to "violate
the first commandment of hierarchical life with incompetent
leadership: [namely that] the hierarchy must be preserved"

7. DISCUSS THE EIGHT

ADMINISTRATION.

(8)

MAJOR

AREAS

OF

PUBLIC

8. WHEN WILL YOU CONSTRUCTIVELY CRITICIZE YOUR EMPLOYEES?

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9. BRIEFLY DISCUSS WHY OUR PRESENT BUREAUCRACY IS

VULNERABLE TO NEPOTISM.

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10. REVIEW THE DEFINITION OF POLITICS. CAN AN ORGANIZATION BE

TOTALLY FREE OF POLITICAL INTERVENTION? WHAT WOULD IT BE
LIKE?

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