THE PHILLIPINES: ”During Marco’s rule, the gap between politics and people’s everyday lives was miles wide. The wealthy families close to the president became richer while the already impoverished population became even more poor”, says Marivel C. Sacendoncillo.

When the regime fell in 1986 - after over two decades of dictatorship and rampant corruption - there was great eagerness to clear everything out and to start over. “We urgently needed to bring politics closer to people’s everyday lives”, says Marivel. She is headmistress of the Local Government Academy, and already back in 1988 started teaching local authorities how local democracy and public services can work in practice.

Two years earlier, she had done a professional U-turn. She left her job as mathematics lecturer at a private university and started working with an organisation that tries to bring out of school youths back to education and to give them a chance to earn a living. “I grew up in a poor coastal province. Doing well at school was a ticket out of poverty for me but I will never forget it. At university, my students came from the elite of society. I wanted to break down patterns of segregation, not cement them further”.

In her new role, Marivel visited homes and talked to poor children’s parents. “I could see how tiny measures made a crucial difference in people’s lives. In a country with severe poverty  things don't just simply work out; society must be involved and create the right conditions for development”.

After After Marco’s fall, stronger local self-government was seen as the best way to bring about democratisation. In 1992, a wide-reaching law was introduced which, in principle, placed all responsibility for the well being of citizens at local level. The new law was a manifestation of new ambitions but Marivel thinks that it has been difficult to get public services to work in practice.

"The local government is responsible for absolutely everything that goes on within its geographical area. This of course includes schools, waste disposal and health care, but also economic development”, Marivel says. One major problem is financing. To put it simply, you could say that responsibility has been decentralised but resources are still administered centrally. Tax revenues are low and the national debt is high. In addition, there are at least four different levels of local government and cooperation between them is marked by conflicts.

Working with out of school youths made Marivel realise just how complicated the issue of poverty is. If society does not understand the situation of its citizens, it is impossible for instance to help the poorest families’ children to go to school rather than work. “What determines the success of a supportive measure is how close you come to people”, Marivel points out. She says that she simply could not resist taking on the task when she heard that the government, after the fall of the dictatorship, was going to establish an institute for training municipal officials in decentralised public services. She has now been working with the development of local democracy for 20 years.

”Our biggest problem right now is to make the central level realise that those of us who run public services must get more resources. But since they are approached by many different local players who do not get along with one another there is more fuss about who should have what instead of everyone presenting a clear demand, with a single strong voice, for what we really need”, says Marivel. In her opinion, the lack of a united voice is detrimental to public services and this has severe effects on the people.

Contrary to what people hoped when Marcos was removed from office in 1986, the Philippines is still one of the world’s most corrupt countries. It is the only country in Asia where the number of poor people is rising; over half of the country’s 86 million citizens live on less than two USD a day. There are major problems in getting basic public services such as waste disposal, transport, education and health care to work.

There have been collaborations between Swedish and Philippine municipalities since 1993, the year after the act on local self government came into force.  In the past the past two years, the focus has been on the difficulties that different Philippine local levels have had in cooperating.

"I find the Swedish system of dividing up public service issues very appealing. For instance, the county council is in charge of health care and transport while the municipality takes care of education. That is not the case here. Instead, health care is an issue that cuts right across central government and four layers of local government. There is no clear division and that makes the provision of services shaky", says Marivel..

In the Philippines, each local level has its own association  and in Marivel’s opinion this negatively affects lobbying. Therefore, one important step to improving public services is to enhance cooperation between the different layersof local government. For three years, SKL has run a project together with ULAP, which is an umbrella organisation for the four Philippine local associations. The aim of this project is to strengthen the Philippine associations so that they can form a united voice and improve the capacity to carry out their undertakings. This is, to a large extent, about reaching consensus among the different local actors regarding the most crucial social issues. A pilot project has tried to establish consensus and joint implementation of improved waste disposal, which has previously been an alarming problem with no strategy.

Education is an issue that is close to Marivel's heart. She still believes that the gap between state schools and private schools is far too wide. Her husband, who is an engineer, worked in the Middle East for 20 years so that they could afford to send their three children to private school. It was especially important for their daughter who suffers from autism. “I am very proud that my children are doing so well; education has given them freedom of choice in their lives. This is true not least for my daughter. She is a talented cook and I think she will be able to work with that", says Marivel. But at the same time she is sad that good education is still just an option for a chosen few and that it requires such large sacrifices. “My vision is that the Philippines will have social services that will enable children to develop and actively shape their lives. I like my job precisely because every day I feel that I am contributing to achieving that goal.”