The document discusses criticisms of the Philippine bureaucracy based on Max Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy. It notes that while bureaucracy aims to be merit-based, the Philippine bureaucracy is vulnerable to nepotism and favors politics over merit. Philippine bureaucrats also often lack job specialization and permanent positions. The document concludes that while bureaucracy could aid social change if properly implemented, the Philippine government does not properly apply bureaucratic principles in practice.
The document discusses criticisms of the Philippine bureaucracy based on Max Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy. It notes that while bureaucracy aims to be merit-based, the Philippine bureaucracy is vulnerable to nepotism and favors politics over merit. Philippine bureaucrats also often lack job specialization and permanent positions. The document concludes that while bureaucracy could aid social change if properly implemented, the Philippine government does not properly apply bureaucratic principles in practice.
The document discusses criticisms of the Philippine bureaucracy based on Max Weber's ideal type of bureaucracy. It notes that while bureaucracy aims to be merit-based, the Philippine bureaucracy is vulnerable to nepotism and favors politics over merit. Philippine bureaucrats also often lack job specialization and permanent positions. The document concludes that while bureaucracy could aid social change if properly implemented, the Philippine government does not properly apply bureaucratic principles in practice.
According to Max Weber, bureaucracy is an “ideal-type” of organization. This leads to
the reason why bureaucracy is ideal to public organizations and extended even to private organizations. This so called “ideal-type” of organization that Max Weber defined is present in the Philippine set-up especially in public entities. Onofre D. Corpuz listed some characteristics of Philippine bureaucracy after a careful study. For me, some of these characteristics have more negative features than the positive features. I will take for example one of the characteristics of Philippine bureaucracy which is vulnerability to nepotism. It is evident that bureaucracy adheres the essentiality of a career system. This pertains to the judgment of hierarchical superiority. But this nepotism shows favoritism, bias, discrimination, inequity, and one-sidedness which are not present in a bureaucratic behavior. This proves that the Philippine bureaucracy is not conforming in the mere definition of bureaucracy. It just shows a contrasting characteristic of bureaucracy to the Philippine bureaucracy and it is quite a huge difference between the two. The Philippine bureaucracy also focus more on politics which must not be present at all times in a bureaucratic system. This manifests that politicians are more present than the bureaucrats which are the civil servants. Bureaucracy adheres the non- interference of the politicians but the mere action of politics tackles in the Philippine bureaucratic behavior. Basically speaking, bureaucracy favors the merit system in which there is a clear defined hierarchy of offices but Philippine bureaucracy favors politics more than the such existence of the merit system. The bureaucrats also in the Philippine setting and in the bureaucratic system differ a lot. These bureaucrats or the civil servants are not present anymore in the Philippine set-up of bureaucracy. Rather, the government serves as the civil servants but they don’t act such. The existence and dominance of the government proves that the essence of bureaucrats in a bureaucratic system are not existing anymore. There are civil servants in this country but only a few occurs. Perhaps, they can be only counted in bare hands. In addition, the bureaucrats in the Philippine set-up have no permanent position in the society. In line with this, these bureaucrats compose of persons with different experiences. These Philippine bureaucrats doesn’t have any job specialization. They work in their field that it doesn’t fit in their experience and training. For example, a nursing graduate works in a government agency. Where is the mere essence of job specialization in this area? It already violates one of the 6 Principles of Bureaucracy which is the principle of fixed and official jurisdiction areas that Max Weber stated. In spite of the negative characteristics of the Philippine Bureaucracy, Onofre Corpuz stated that bureaucracy is an essential instrument of social change. This pertains that bureaucracy is thus used an aid for the better government system in the Philippine setting. It only used in a wrongful way in which the people blame it for the poor social services they receive to the government. There are other certain factors in which bureaucracy is not that used properly by the government. The Philippine bureaucratic behavior is thus a complicated one. It is complicated to deal with on. It adheres and promotes efficiency in theory especially in public entities but the proper way of applying this principle is the problem itself which is in practice. This leads to the notion that the bureaucracy is an “ideal-type” of organization. It may not be the best type of organization but it can be the best once use and apply properly especially in the Philippine government set-up.
Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology, Kenya - BSC Computer Security & Forensics MSC IT Security & Audit, PHD IT Security & Audit