What People say about Running a Bureaucracy
Running A Bureaucracy: A Guidebook for LGU Administrators, other Public Managers and Elected Officials is a path-breaking book because it dares to visit the less-trodden ground of practical, real life, yet scholarly study of an emerging new public management culture at the local government level.
Designed as a handy guidebook for local government managers, Running A Bureaucracy documents in colorful detail the travails of a young economist who by choice spent a good two decades of her professional life as a provincial administrator of a progressive, award-laden province. It would not be wrong to partly attribute Bulacan’s prominence to the author’s own exemplary management of premiere development programs that had garnered for the provincial government its place in the halls of fame as a reinvented, citizen-responsive bureaucracy.
As a first of its kind in public management literature, Running A Bureaucracy is for the new public manager as it is also for the veteran government administrator. The book draws strength and clarity from its commitment to respond to the public manager’s needs in the workplace—new management techniques, good governance practices, relevant issuances and decrees, informational resources and timeless principles of leadership; all in one compact source book. To quote the author herself: “If I could just shorten a bit the learning curve of the new administrator, hasten his realization of the potentials of the job…so he can focus at once on the more critical issues of the LGU…then I would have fulfilled the purpose of this book.”
The development process of this book is far from ordinary, as many of the author’s colleagues in the Provincial Administrators League of the Philippines (PALP) and the Provincial Government of Bulacan would attest. It started out as a simple idea of capturing in print form, the experiences and learnings of her 17 years as the longest serving provincial administrator in the country. But like a lamp in the dark of night, the uniqueness and sincerity of her initiative could not be hidden under a bushel for long. Soon enough, people began noticing. Good governance and new public management advocates, including the National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG) of the University of Philippines recognized the potential of Running A Bureaucracy to be a definitive guidebook not only for local government administrators, but for all public managers and officials who would want to make a difference for themselves and for their country.
Running A Bureaucracy: A Guidebook for LGU Administrators, other Public Managers, and Elected Officials is divided into 10 chapters—each introduced by question-and-answer articles and process briefs about the most common, but critical administrative processes in local governments. Each chapter also comes with poignant narratives highlighting programs, projects and best practices in the Province of Bulacan as well as valuable scholarly reviews.
Providing readers a window to the heart and persona of the author are a collection of inspiring images and quotations from great leaders and teachers of our time that have also served as the author’s guide in her sterling career and public service vocation.
This book also becomes more significant as it is published in celebration of NCPAG’s 55th anniversary and the University of the Philippines’ grand centennial year in 2008.
With this seminal work that is anticipated to spur greater inquiry on new public administration trends and practices, I welcome the author to the UP NCPAG family.
May this book lead us to our greater purpose of being heroes to ourselves and our country.
Dr. ALEX B. BRILLANTES
Dean, University of the Philippines-NCPAG
Designed as a handy guidebook for local government managers, Running A Bureaucracy documents in colorful detail the travails of a young economist who by choice spent a good two decades of her professional life as a provincial administrator of a progressive, award-laden province. It would not be wrong to partly attribute Bulacan’s prominence to the author’s own exemplary management of premiere development programs that had garnered for the provincial government its place in the halls of fame as a reinvented, citizen-responsive bureaucracy.
As a first of its kind in public management literature, Running A Bureaucracy is for the new public manager as it is also for the veteran government administrator. The book draws strength and clarity from its commitment to respond to the public manager’s needs in the workplace—new management techniques, good governance practices, relevant issuances and decrees, informational resources and timeless principles of leadership; all in one compact source book. To quote the author herself: “If I could just shorten a bit the learning curve of the new administrator, hasten his realization of the potentials of the job…so he can focus at once on the more critical issues of the LGU…then I would have fulfilled the purpose of this book.”
The development process of this book is far from ordinary, as many of the author’s colleagues in the Provincial Administrators League of the Philippines (PALP) and the Provincial Government of Bulacan would attest. It started out as a simple idea of capturing in print form, the experiences and learnings of her 17 years as the longest serving provincial administrator in the country. But like a lamp in the dark of night, the uniqueness and sincerity of her initiative could not be hidden under a bushel for long. Soon enough, people began noticing. Good governance and new public management advocates, including the National College of Public Administration and Governance (NCPAG) of the University of Philippines recognized the potential of Running A Bureaucracy to be a definitive guidebook not only for local government administrators, but for all public managers and officials who would want to make a difference for themselves and for their country.
Running A Bureaucracy: A Guidebook for LGU Administrators, other Public Managers, and Elected Officials is divided into 10 chapters—each introduced by question-and-answer articles and process briefs about the most common, but critical administrative processes in local governments. Each chapter also comes with poignant narratives highlighting programs, projects and best practices in the Province of Bulacan as well as valuable scholarly reviews.
Providing readers a window to the heart and persona of the author are a collection of inspiring images and quotations from great leaders and teachers of our time that have also served as the author’s guide in her sterling career and public service vocation.
This book also becomes more significant as it is published in celebration of NCPAG’s 55th anniversary and the University of the Philippines’ grand centennial year in 2008.
With this seminal work that is anticipated to spur greater inquiry on new public administration trends and practices, I welcome the author to the UP NCPAG family.
May this book lead us to our greater purpose of being heroes to ourselves and our country.
Dr. ALEX B. BRILLANTES
Dean, University of the Philippines-NCPAG
