Community Power and Participatory Decision-Making

Attempts to define power have been traditionalistic, contentious and mundane despite the concept’s widespread use. Two salient features were presented for the controversial assumptions in defining power: power as domination and power as empowerment. In seeking to comprehensively reconcile the “contestedness” about power, Steven Lukes (2005) observes that how we conceive of power makes a difference to how we think and act in general especially in social contexts. The views of power can be a personal process where the interviews and the focus group served as helping the participants grapple with the controversy and discomfort surrounding the concept.

During the in-depth interviews (see Appendix K), three power-holders who played information-worthy roles in the community issue were asked to provide their own meaning of power. These were the Punong Barangay and two Barangay Kagawads. It was intended to capture their constructs of power by asking them to provide power through their own words and how they associate the definition with their community.

The focus group participants were also solicited of their presumptions in contextualizing their community (see Appendix K). The underlying belief is that the silenced people have the right to speak out and be heard. By sharing and constructing perception grounded in their lived experiences, the community members—quoted as stakeholders—were able to articulate their grievances and expose the hindrances to their capacity to be active participants in their own decision-making process.

Since the research questions were explicated in Filipino, the term power was reworded as kapangyarihan to “indigenize” the language. I deemed that it is particularly important for language is sim...

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...Power-holder 3: Mag-isip ka bago ka gumawa ng desisyon… para maiwasan yung pagsisisi sa bandang huli… Hindi padalos-dalos.

[You must think before making a decision… so that, in the end, there will be no regrets. Do not be abrupt.]

In this perspective, power is viewed as the legitimate prerogative to make binding decisions. Power-holders are given the right to make decisions within a specific area of responsibility. It must be emphasized though that those decisions must not only rely on power alone because one would have to ensure that it would benefit the greatest number of people and that the best way to reach a decision depends on a number of factors such as structural, cultural, environmental and situational factors (Alfred & Scoble, 1968). It can also be shaped by predominant values and norms (Aiken & Mott, 1970) such as the discrimination against dayos.