Local Autonomy Centralized Authority

Inspiring leaders

Martyred hero Evelio Javier died 25 years ago, in a very public assassination by pro-Marcos forces during the snap elections of 1986; and yet to this day, his family has not obtained justice for the vile act of murder. But his memory lives on in the hearts of many leaders, especially those who are elected leaders of their communities because of the initiative taken by a few of his friends and admirers.

The Evelio B. Javier Foundation, more familiarly known as EBJF, was organized in June 29 1986, soon after the EDSA Revolution. To honor the late Evelio Javier, former governor of Antique province, its founders saw fit to focus its interventions on helping to rebuild democracy in communities all over the country. Its organization was timely. After the first local government elections under President Cory Aquino, the local government executives clamored for greater autonomy, in order to retrieve power and authority that had been heavily centralized under the Marcos authoritarian regime. Restoration of a real people’s democracy was not, after all, possible without decentralization.

Because a quarter of a century had passed under an authoritarian regime when even getting an allocation for a barangay water well involved lining up for a Malacañang audience with the President and/or the First Lady, newly elected local government executives needed to be reoriented to the new realities of a government only too willing to share power. President Cory Aquino, for whose election Evelio Javier had shed his blood, having succeeded in getting the new People’s Constitution ratified, lost no time in pushing for decentralization of powers to the newly elected local governments.

Rose Marie Yenko and Triccie Cepeda-Sison, clinical psychologists and organization development consultants, had facilitated change processes for civil servants at the Development Academy of the Philippines in a program called MOD (xxx in organization development). They were recruited by Triccie’s husband, Louie Sison, one of Evelio Javier’s classmates at the Ateneo, to spearhead program and projects development for the EBJF.

The energetic duo took to the task with gusto, like ducks to water. They first undertook the Local Executive Leadership Seminars under an Asia Foundation grant which ran from 1986-1991, when the landmark Local Government Code of 1991 was passed.

Opinion: Academies overspend revealed!

The LACSEG is partially recouped from the money that the LA spends on pupils with acute needs. This in effect transfers funds from those in greatest need to those with fewest problems. The rest of the money is top-sliced from the general grant to councils, whether or not they have any schools converting to academies! This crude method has incensed local councillors by its unfairness. Peter Downes is a former President and Funding Consultant of the Secondary Heads Association (now the Association of School and College Leaders), a Cambridgeshire County Councillor and Vice-President of the Liberal Democrat Education Association. He successfully proposed a motion opposing Academies and Free Schools at the Liberal Democrat conference in Liverpool last September.