People's Council / Empowerment Ordinance

The Empowerment Ordinance is the Naga City legislation that created the Naga City People’s Council, giving NGOs and people’s organisations an institutionalised place in the city’s own deliberations. The Council is the body; the ordinance is the reason it did not depend on anyone’s goodwill.

This pair is the part of the Naga story that transfers. Personal integrity is not an exportable mechanism, and a reform that runs on it expires with the reformer. Writing participation into the rules converts a good administration into a standing arrangement, which is the same move Hong Kong made with an independent commission and Georgia made with a rebuilt force, at the scale of one Philippine city.

Source: Princeton Innovations for Successful Societies, “Jesse Robredo and Naga City, Philippines, 1988-1998,” free PDF, https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf5601/files/Policy_Note_ID158.pdf , with the Robredo interview transcript at https://successfulsocieties.princeton.edu/interviews/jesse-robredo . The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation cited Robredo in 2000 for “giving credence to the promise of democracy by demonstrating that effective city management is compatible with yielding power to the people,” https://rmaward.asia/rmawardees/robredo-jesse-manalastas/ . The frequently quoted 573 percent rise in local revenues comes from celebratory sources, is unverified against Bureau of Local Government Finance records, and is not used by this course.

First used in: 2.7 · Can a country change? Somebody already checked