The impact of Community Development Program on political development at the village level in the Philippines

Date of Completion

January 1991

Keywords

Political Science, General|Political Science, Public Administration|Sociology, Social Structure and Development

Degree

Ph.D.

Abstract

The Philippine Community Development Program was charged with the responsibility for bringing about the desired political development at the village level which was a critical element in the Philippine government's program of decentralization.^ The central question of this study is whether after more than 20 years of operation, the Program had a significant impact on political development at the village level. The study covered the ten-year period from 1973-1983. The independent variable is the contribution of the Program represented by Person-Year Coverage (PYC) and Amount of Community Development Services (ACDS). The dependent variable is the level of political development at the village level represented by Level of Political Awareness, Level of Political Participation, and Degree of Self-Government. Pearsonian correlation coefficients were computed to determine the impact of the independent variable on the dependent variable. Research data were collected from sample villages by interviewing respondents and search of existing records. Using random method, two provinces were selected from each of the twelve regions in the country and a sample village was drawn from each of the selected provinces. In order to minimize the effect of urban bias, cities were excluded. Individual respondents from each village were also drawn at random from the list of eligible voters.^ The study found that sample villages attained high levels of political development but could hardly be attributed to the Philippine Community Development Program as shown by weak correlations between the independent and dependent variables. Among the factors that could have severely curtailed the effectiveness of the Program are: the coordination problems that plagued Program operations from top to bottom; the breakdown of missionary zeal among fieldworkers; and the change of role of village workers from change agents to local government supervisors. Since the high levels of political development at the village level could not be attributed to the Program, the study suggested that the following factors could have impacted on it: increased economic activities due to the natural process of economic development reaching the remote villages; and increased military and propaganda campaign by the government because of increasing rebel activities in the country. ^

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