Barua-Yap, M. B. (2014). The Philippine legislature : Toward a performance accountability framework. Quezon City, Philippines: National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines.

Doctor of Public Administration

This study explores the terrain of public accountability of legislators to identify the authoritative sources thereof, explicate from these authoritative sources the powers, duties and functions of legislators and the appurtenant actions and behavior thereto for which they are accountable to the public, determine the types of accountability of legislators and identify the mechanisms of enforcement of specific types of accountabilities of legislators. The study also develops an institutional legislative performance accountability framework intended to foster and strengthen public accountability of legislators and the legislature. Public accountability of legislators in this study is the accountability that attaches to legislators by virtue of the mandated powers, duties and functions vested in and made integral to their office as legislators by the constitution, pertinent laws and institutional rules. In a democratic republican government, the constitution embodies the sovereign will of the people on the kind of government they want, what powers it can wield and what it should do through its branches and instrumentalities. Laws are enacted by duly elected representatives of the people and are, like the constitution, expressions of the sovereign will. Institutional rules of the legislature are promulgated through constitutionally authorized and lawfully established legislative mechanisms and procedures and are, thus, also expressions of the sovereign will. The people through their will embodied in the constitution, pertinent laws and institutional rules, vest powers, duties and functions on legislators, and in so doing, set the standards and define the parameters of accountability of legislators, individually and collectively. The study develops an institutional legislative performance-based accountability framework to fill the gap in the legislative accountability terrain created by the absence of any framework or mechanism to enforce, foster and strengthen the accountability of legislators and the legislature for what they are primarily mandated to do by the constitution, by the pertinent laws and rules of the legislature - that of making laws intended to serve the better welfare of the people who entrusted them with the mandate of the legislative office. Thus, legislative performance relates to the actions of legislators and the legislature that are undertaken to fulfill their legislative mandate. The framework is intended to address the need for legislators and the legislature to comply with the constitutional imperative for continuing accountability to the people specifically in the arena of legislative performance, for the strengthening and fostering institutional capabilities for public accountability, and for encouraging active citizen engagement in the legislative accountability process. In this study, the legislative performance accountability framework is developed within the institutional environment of the House of Representatives and is conceived to be integrated into its legislative management system. The constitutive elements of the framework are the authoritative sources of legal basis thereof, the indicative behaviors or indicators of legislative performance, the systems and procedures for enforcing, fostering and strengthening performance accountability, and the mechanisms of enforcement thereof. The key component of the framework is a legislative performance monitoring and assessment system. Optimizing the use of information technology, the system is designed to (a) gather, organize and process all information on legislation and legislative performance of the House of Representatives and its member, (b) enable easy and continuing access to these information by internal users and the general public, and (c) facilitate institutional and public monitoring, reporting, and assessment of, and public feedback on the legislative performance of the House of Representatives and its members. The system is accessible to institutional users through the local area network, and to the public, through the House of Representatives' website. The system as designed is able to generate, on demand, reports on and basic assessments of legislative performance through legislative performance report cards. Two types of report cards are generated by the system - the individual members' performance report cards and the institutional performance report card. By logging into the House website and tapping into the links on the performance report cards, the public can access the most timely and comprehensive trove of information on the legislative performance of the House of Representatives and any of its members, including the legislative documents and records from which these information are sourced. The development of an institutional accountability framework from the wood and mortar of the duty to perform what legislative office commands by fiat of the law springs from a compelling vision of the Philippine legislature as a genuine democratic deliberative assembly composed of freely elected representatives of the people whose actions, individually and collectively, are dictated solely by the duty of serving the public interest. That vision can only be attainable in an institutional environment that is authentically "public" - open in every democratic sense - permitted continually by the needs, aspirations and interest of the people, through every institutional channel and mechanism possible in a regime of laws,the processes and proceedings therein freely accessible to public scrutiny and subject to the vested right of citizens to full information on the actions and decisions of those to whom they entrusted the powers of government.