Good afternoon ladies and gentleman. This afternoon I would like to talk a little about Max Weber’s Bureaucracy. But first, let me tell you an article I read in the newspaper issued a couple of months ago. On January 21, 2013, Orlan Calayag was sworn in as the new National Food Authority administrator after Angelito Banayo resigned from his seat because of being accused of corruption and rice smuggling. Anyway, let’s get back to the point. Calayag is a dual citizen caregiver who used to reside in America.
When PNoy appointed Calayag as the new administrator of the department, the most common reaction was: “Who? ” According to Food authority’s Charter, or Presidential Decree 6, all administrators and deputy administrators of the agency shall be “natural-born citizens of the Philippines, not less than 35 years of age, with proven honesty and integrity and of recognized managerial competence. ” And even though Republic Act 9225 exists, a person who assumes any government position should renounce his foreign citizenship first.
This brought a lot of questions and objections. Calayag never became a government official until this January, never renounced his dual citizenship or does his previous work experience indicate “recognized managerial competence. ” This scenario leads us to the so called KKK which brings us to Max Weber’s idea of Bureaucracy. I would like to emphasize three characteristics of bureaucracy. First, Division of labor and work specialization is used to align employees with their tasks.
The Essay on Representative Bureaucracy
The idea of representative bureaucracy is a relatively simple one; however, the nuance of implementation which accompanies the transition from theory to practice has resulted in a divergence of opinion regarding the usefulness of two models of representational bureaucracy: a “passive”‘ mode and an “active mode. ” Each of the modes demonstrates the attempt to generate ...
With this said, Calayag and President Aquino defies the ‘work specialization’ point because Calayag doesn’t specialize anything that may be related to the tasks and works of an NFA administrator. Next would be Weber’s, Managers should maintain an impersonal relationship with employees to promote fair and equal treatment of all employees so that unbiased decisions can be made. How could this actually exist or happen between PNoy and Calayag when in the first place, PNoy appointed Calayag because he is his friend?
And finally, competence, not personality, is the basis for job appointment. Calayag finished a degree in Business Administration major in Business Marketing and his CV states that indeed he was a “Patient Services Specialist” or a caregiver. There is also the fact that Calayag can’t seem to find a permanent job – hopping from one job to another ending up connected to 6 different companies in a span of 8 years. So in the end, my dear listeners, this becomes another case of ‘kabarkada’ appointment made by the President.
