Roles of official Policy Makers

ROLES OF OFFICIAL POLICY MAKERS

Due to the myriads of problems face by every society, governments engage in policymaking, a potent instrument to address and solve problems of societies and issues that are of public concern. Governments formulates policies in order also to accelerate economic development, maintain peace and order, and improve the social conditions of the people. Policies are formulated by certain actors to achieve certain goals and they consist of certain courses of actions to be taken in certain processes. These actors or participants are crucial and influential in the policy process. Anderson categorized the crucial actors in the policy-making process into two, namely official and unofficial policymakers. Unofficial policymakers are those who do not occupy formal public positions or political offices. They are not in the government but they derive their relevance and policy-making roles from government and the official policy makers. Official policymakers are those who possess legal authority to engage in the formulation of public policy. Those involved in this category are the legislators, the executive, the administrators and the judiciary.

The executive comprises the president and the heads of government agencies. The main responsibility of the executive in the policy process is to implement public policies. However, although policy making is constitutionally delegated to the legislative department, in the Philippines we can say that the president plays dominant role also in the formulation of public policy. Besides initiating policies which are in line with his agenda usually expressed during the state of the nation address (SONA), the president can influence policy enactment in the legislative department through his allies. Because of the enormous funds the president can dispose to his allies or by threatening them to be removed from their advantage position he can easily push for the acceptance and passage of his policy proposals. Thus, breaching the philosophy of separation powers and the principle of check and balance.  

In our democratic setting, the legislators constitute the primary policy makers. They possess direct constitutional authority to initiate, formulate and legitimize policies. As elected lawmakers they represent their people from their various constituencies. Consequently, they are expected to collect the views, interests, demands and problems of their constituents, harmonize them and translate them into policy proposals for enactment. However, with the way our lawmakers sometimes acting according to the will of executive or according to their own interest, can we say therefore that they generate and develop policy proposals from their people? Are their policy proposals product of the sentiments of their people or they are just waiting and formalize policies already formulated by the executive? May be there should be systematic way of accounting bills proposed by different lawmakers and match them with their constituents’ needs and aspirations.