PARALLEL SESSION 2A: PUBLIC SECTOR TRANSFORMATIONS

​This parallel session reverts to sociocultural norms, local government budgeting, and the judiciary as mechanisms for initiating public sector reforms. Professor Daeyong Choi, Visiting Professor at the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, Korea, chaired the said session. It features presentations of scholars from Korea and the Philippines, each country having its own experience of successes and challenges in the aforementioned fields. Speakers were: Professor Soonhee Kim, also from the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, Korea; Mr. Alder Delloro, doctorate student at the National College of Public Administration and Governance, Philippines; and Ms. Cynthia Grace Valdez from Quirino State University, Philippines.

Professor Soonhee Kim examined the experience of local governments in South Korea in their implementation of participatory budgeting, specifically its impacts on the trust between citizens and the government. The findings of the study indicate that there is a positive association between participants’ knowledge of the budget and the enhancement of mutual trust between the citizens and government officials. She concluded that participatory budget is a valuable venue to engage the involvement of citizens in the policy making process.

Ms. Cynthia Grace Tomas-Valdez presented the findings of their study on the indigenous farming practices of the Bugkalots, an indigenous group in Northern Philippines. The Bugkalots’ farming practices play a vital role in keeping their community together and in the shaping of the traditional laws followed in their villages. The Bugkalots’ traditional laws are kept mostly pertain to the use and protection of their natural resources.

The study of Mr. Alder Delloro, a practicing lawyer, looks into the role of the judiciary in the promotion of climate change justice in the Philippines. Mr. Delloro examines how climate change litigation in the Philippines has been shaping through the judiciary’s jurisprudential pronouncements and promulgation of landmark cases involving environmental laws.