Proceedings of the first Independence congress : held in the city of Manila, Philippine islands, February 22-26, 1930 / Published under the direction of Dean maximo M. Kalaw, executive secretary, University of the Philippines.

120 INDEPENDENCE CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS

administrative organization. It is an admitted fact that the
success of any business enterprise is due to the employment of
experts. I shall not undertake to describe in detail the City
Manager Plan; it will be unprofitable to do so on this occasion.
Suffice it to say that under this plan there is an elective council
which appoints a manager who holds office at the pleasure of
the council, appoints the heads of different departments of
the city, supervises the work of said departments, and stands
responsible to the council for the successful management of the
city's business. Ordinarily, the man appointed as manager is
one eminently qualified by training and experience to direct the
people's affairs. I believe the City Manager Plan has already
passed the experimental stage, and because it has proved successful in the United States, it will be worth our, while to
give it a trial in the Philippines. It must be remembered that
popular election cannot furnish the guarantee that the person
elected to head the administrative machinery of a municipality
is an expert administrator. The president-and-council type of
municipal government which we now have makes difficult the
fixing of responsibility for the misgovernment of a town. The
municipal president, who has supervisory control over the
administrative affairs of the municipality, being elected by the
people, is supposed to be directly responsible to the people,
among whom "everybody's business is nobody's business."
Under the City Manager Plan, the manager is responsible to
the council and the council to the people. The plan draws
the distinction between the functions of representation and
administration, does away with the friction between the elective
municipal chief executive and the council, and enables the people
to fix responsibility for many anomalies in the administration.
It is not improbable that local autonomy will pave the way
for agitation in the future for an arrangement that will allow
direct control of municipal government by the people. In
many cities of the United States, this control is provided for
by means of the INITIATIVE, the REFERENDUM, and the
RECALL. Although these instruments of popular control
are in accord with the spirit of a democratic government, nevertheless it should be remembered that they do not provide
absolute guarantee against official irresponsibility. Democra