I couldn’t have said it better, and actually I have been thinking about a post along these lines lately, so I’ll let the Philippines’ former Civil Service Commission chair say it for me:

ABS-CBN Interactive
A professional bureaucracy is the best defense against graft and corruption in government, former Civil Service Commission chair Karina David said.

In a forum titled “Creating a Professional Bureaucracy: Problems at the CSC” sponsored by the Transparency and Accountability Network last week, David stressed that Senate investigations into anomalies in government would be passé if the bureaucracy is manned by competent employees whose loyalty is not to the powers that be but to good governance.

In the midst of taking corrupt or just plain idiotic bureaucracy to task, it’s worth noting that what I am advocating for is a just the kind of professional bureaucracy Karina David speaks of.

That was what my doctoral research about child protective services (CPS) turned up 15 years ago: CPS units with 50% or better professionally trained CPS workers had far better outcomes than did CPS units where the majority of “social workers” carried that designation by dint of their job title only, rather than any professional education and training as social workers.

As David notes further on in the article, career bureaucrats in the Philippines have been regularly passed over for appointment to leadership posts in favor of politically motivated appointments. Gosh, sounds like the U.S. DOJ, GSA, NASA, etc., etc., yes? There was a time when most politically aware U.S. citizens would have said, “Of course,” as to that being the situation in the Philippines, and felt somewhat superior about that not being hte case here. No more.

One thing the Philippines has, however, that the U.S. doesn’t have: the Transparency and Accountability Network. Certainly Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), VoteVets, and other such organizations are on that track, but a national (or in the case of the Philippine-based organization, international) organization that’s named straight out,”Transparency and Accountability”–well, that just has a very special ring to it.

Here’s to their success in the Philippines and elsewhere; and oh, for the day when BureaucracyBlog does as much or more to celebrate professional bureaucracy in the U.S. “manned by competent employees whose loyalty is not to the powers that be but to good governance.”

Peace.

Deborah Alicen