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Covid pandemic right now at 2021

  The COVID-19 pandemic has been going on for more than a year now. According to Elflein (2021), the coronavirus disease outbreak has spread to more than 210 countries and territories as of September 2021, crippling not only the operations of the private sector but the public sector as well. Considering Covid-19 is a highly transmissible disease that can lead to death. Companies and organizations compel to abandon their old ways of conducting business and adopt new schemes that will continue to meet the demands of their customers or clients while at the same time guaranteeing their safety. Alternative work arrangements, such as skeletal workforce and work-from-home setup, were used by both the private and public sectors as a means of continuing to respond to the needs of clients or customers. However, have these arrangements successfully addressed the clients' demands, particularly for services intended for the general public? Even more so if these mechanisms were able to efficiently and effectively deliver quality public services.

             Public service is a service offered to the general public by the government, either directly through the public sector or by subsidizing its delivery (Kant, n.d.). Public services include health care, education, housing, social services, public transportation, and a range of other services provided to the general public. The backbone of a just and civilized society is public service. Public services broaden opportunities, safeguards the poor and underprivileged, and improve everyone's quality of life ("Why public services matter," 2013). Considering the significance of these services in people's lives, the government must initiate timely, economical, and efficient means of delivering public service for the welfare of the people.

             The outbreak of a coronavirus in Wuhan, China, in December 2020 alarmed the entire world. A few months later, the coronavirus outbreak had turned into a pandemic, causing widespread panic in many countries. In the Philippines, the apparent lack of protocols or manuals of operations to contend with the pandemic forthwith showed the country's critical structural and governance deficiencies (Tabuga, Domingo, Diokno-Sicat & Ulep, 2020). The public sector and its employees were thrown onto the front lines of the crisis without a ready and clear protocol to follow, forcing them to contend with a rapidly changing situation and make adjustments along the way.

             Many government healthcare facilities struggled to cope with the influx of Covid-19 patients; and the lack of quarantine facilities in the country transformed many public classrooms into isolation units, even if they lacked adequate amenities, forcing patients to make do with what the government has provided to them (Adonis, 2021). Aside from that, frontline healthcare workers continued to be neglected and underpaid. Furthermore, they had yet to receive their promised hazard pay and special risk allowance.

             In addition, Dimatulac's report (2021) disclosed that teachers and students in public schools had acknowledged their difficulties with blended learning. The lack of digital technologies, insufficient budget, and excessive workload took a toll on the academic endeavor of the students and teachers. Furthermore, some of the government programs were having difficulties in implementation. For instance, the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) has been challenging to implement due to the government's stringent validation process, gaps in the information it disseminates, and the lack of digital tools to deliver such subsidies more efficiently (Cho, 2021). Considering these issues, it became undeniable that the government's system needed to reform to improve the quality of services made available to the public.

             Deeming (1992 as cited in Andrew, 2018) asserted in his book "System of Profound Knowledge" (SoPK) that in most occasions, the system, not the people, is to blame for the problems that emerge; therefore, it is critical to pinpoint the flaws in the system and seek to rectify them. It even implies that regardless of how much effort the employees put in, their efforts are in vain if they cannot perform more than the system allows. Additionally, Deeming's theory of profound knowledge posited that each organization comprises a network of interconnected processes and individuals who make up the system's components (Connor, 2019). Henceforth, we must note that the system and individuals have a mutual or reciprocal relationship. 

              Debes (2018) stated that there would be disorganization without a system that structured the rest of our work.  The system is the mechanism that guides people to their suitable place so they can accord their part. Furthermore, it enables our tasks to be organized and provides an essential structure for producing services or products. For this reason, it is necessary to comprehend which aspects of the system need to be improved and how it affects people to provide effective and efficient public services.

             In the study of Florina (2017), he asserted that the efficiency and effectiveness in the public sector require taking into consideration various aspects. These aspects include competence, organization, carrying on responsibilities, governmental transparency, citizen involvement in decision-making on some shared issues of public concern, streamlined allocation of public resources, and democratic governance.

            The Asian Development Bank's (2013) report regarding the persistent challenges in Asia's economic development and public services also supports this. According to the report, concerns regarding the lack of governmental transparency and inadequate governance foster corruption, rent-seeking by public providers, and misuse of public funds, which substantially influence public service quality. Thus, completely disregarding these factors contributes to the inefficient and ineffective delivery of public services and the growing government malfeasance.

             Acknowledging the flaw in the system could be the first step toward addressing the concerns with the delivery of public services. We must create initiatives that will contribute to the development and betterment of the system. We cannot keep doing things the same way we have always done them, especially if we know that they are not helping provide quality public services or public goods. We must evolve with the times and engage in continuous improvement to ensure quality service delivery to the people. We can transform the system to efficiently address outdated processes and provide people with much-needed public services promptly and effectively through change. 

             Deeming's 14-point philosophy emphasized the importance of establishing a consistent goal for improvement and investing in people to develop the organization. In today's digital era, the constancy of purpose toward improvement means that we must constantly strive to enhance the organization's operations by investing in digital transformation that will significantly assist in the immediate facilitation of public services. We have to establish a reliable and relevant information system that can assist in the effective gathering, analysis, storage, and transmission of data which can aid in the decision-making process for implementing a government policy or program. Furthermore, we must also enhance our e-government by providing the necessary infrastructure, ICT tools, and sufficient personnel training to contribute to the general public's responsive delivery of online citizen-centered services.

             Aside from establishing a consistent goal for improvement, we must also recognize the relevance of human capital investment. As previously stated, there is a mutual interaction between the system and the individuals. The employees are the ones who work to carry out the organization's goals and objectives; hence they must be valued. Employees' work performance is affected if they are not appropriately treated and their needs are unaddressed. While performing their duties in the middle of the pandemic, many public healthcare workers suffer from stress, exhaustion, anxiety, and depression; despite this, they have continued to be overlooked and have yet to receive their risk allowances and hazard compensation. Apart from their unpaid benefits, the inadequate support for the public healthcare workers made them suffer more. There is even news where healthcare workers wear adult diapers to reduce the expenses on personal protective equipment (PPEs). Furthermore, due to the lack of resources, student management, and piled-up submissions and workloads, teachers at public schools were under extreme stress and on the verge of burnout, according to the study conducted by Robosa, Paras, Perante, Alvez, and Tus (2021). Given all this, how can we expect government workers to give their best to provide public services if they feel neglected and their immediate needs are unmet?

             Considering Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which identifies five levels of human needs that must be satisfied before an individual can perform an optimum level of performance at work. If we want employees to perform better at work, we must provide them with a supportive environment where their needs are taken into consideration rather than overlooked. We must understand the needs of the workers and how these needs may influence their motivation in performing their duties. Government employees also have families to support; therefore, they must receive their wages and other benefits on time. In addition to that, as work in the public sector can be pretty stressful and demanding, it is vital to look after the employees' mental health, which might negatively impact their work performance.

             In conclusion, because one of the objectives of public administration is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public services, it is essential to identify solutions to accomplish these objectives. Hence, it is vital to strengthen the system that facilitates the delivery of public services and value and provide support to the employees who carry out the different tasks that cater to the needs of the public.

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