Public policy in the Philippines: taking the road less traveled toward decentering experts and power

Lead Researcher(s): Noe John Joseph E. Sacramento; Antonio D. Salazar Jr.; and Clyde Ben A Gacayan
Status: Published

Abstract/summary: This chapter looks into the history and contemporary developments of public policy in the Philippines. It argues that public policy in the country did not establish itself as a discipline with its own distinct epistemology and ontology. Rather, it is dismembered and continuously reconfigured depending on the ‘part’ or ‘parts’ frequently operationalized and instrumentalized by more established disciplines. In making sense of ‘Philippine Public Policy’, the chapter rethinks and unpacks the scholarships in those related disciplines. It moves beyond the mere definition of public policy in the country to examine its existential crisis. It highlights that we can no longer afford to propagate another messy spiral of identity in the field of public policy in the Philippines, as the mainstream disciplines have experienced before. This existential crisis ends with the necessity to take the road less traveled toward decentering experts and power.

Keywords:

• Public policy
• Policy studies
• Discipline
• History
• Existentail crisis
• The Philippines