Informality in the Philippine Civil Service

Abstract

Philippine political and bureaucratic organisations are usually presented as weak, permeable, distorted and corrupt and, as such, lie some way from a proper condition of formality. There is no question that informal behaviour can and does have a deleterious effect on the civil service and the organisations it staffs. But it is also clear that, within the bureaucracy, there is a deal of positive informal behaviour. It is suggested here that informality is essential to the day-to-day operation of bureaucratic organisations, a vital source of innovation, and the base material from which the formal is shaped. Possible explanations for the emergence of these qualities are also revealed. There are, in particular, overlapping and mutually reinforcing circumstances or conditions – negative informality, divergent representations, divisions in authority, and over-conformity – that appear to excite positive informality, and that may constitute useful elements in developing an explanatory model of informality in Philippine bureaucracy.