Decentralization In The Philippines Essay

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The Philippines is a republican democratic government wherein the sovereignty resides in the people. The 1987 Philippine constitution embodies the principles of the country and is the basis of all laws. According to Aristotle, the best government is a monarchy. However, in the case of the Philippines, its population large as it is, monarchy would not be as effective. In addition, the Philippines is an archipelago and is composed of 7,107 islands which makes it harder for a monarchial type of government to supervise the whole country. Even our current type of government is having a difficult time monitoring every area’s actions. Hence, under this constitution, it is stated that the Philippines shall have a decentralized government. In the general sense, decentralization is the transfer of authority from the central government to the local ones (Tabunda & Galang, 1991). “The constitution upholds the autonomy of local government as it lays down the general framework for the existence and …show more content…

According to Cariño (1995), LGUs relied on their share from the national government because of two factors: insufficient sources of revenue and inadequate (change word) revenue collection. The revenue raising powers are stated in the LGC, but there’s no section in it where it states that the LGUs should maximize it. Yet, the real question lingers: How can the poor LGUs maximize their taxing powers when there is not much property and business to tax on? We have said that the bulk of the taxes comes from the property and business tax. If these undeveloped LGUs lack infrastructure such as good roads, bridges, and the like, then large investors would not want to build their business in that area (Legaspi, Cabo, & Joaquin, 1996). They would be unable to compete with the more developed ones: but that was one purpose on why LGUs was created. To entice competition among