Enhancing the Quality of Decision Making? · · 2007-05-29Enhancing the Quality of Decision Making? Introducing Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) for boundary conflict resolution

Enhancing the Quality of Decision Making? Introducing Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) for boundary

conflict resolution in the Philippines

Md. Kamruzzaman April, 2007

Enhancing the Quality of Decision Making? Introducing Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) for boundary conflict resolution

in the Philippines

by

Md. Kamruzzaman Thesis submitted to the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geo-information Science and Earth Observation, Specialisation: Urban Planning and Management Thesis Assessment Board Chairman: Dr. R.V. Sliuzas External Examiner: Dr. S.C.M. Geertman First Supervisor: Dr. Ir. L.G.J. Boerboom Second Supervisor: Drs. E.J.M. Dopheide

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION

ENSCHEDE, THE NETHERLANDS

Disclaimer This document describes work undertaken as part of a programme of study at the International Institute for Geo-information Science and Earth Observation. All views and opinions expressed therein remain the sole responsibility of the author, and do not necessarily represent those of the institute.

“The need for making a good decision grows as the importance of the context increases. Unfortunately, it is not obvious what constitute a good decision.”

Keren and Bruin, 2003

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Abstract

When decision making processes get stranded in conflicts, owners of that process need to look for conflict resolution approaches that lead to a the right decision and to a decision that holds. They can change the decision making procedures, the group of people involved, and the decision methods to arrive at a good decision. Nevertheless, the definition of an acceptable set of criteria for decision’s goodness is problematic.

Decision making is considered in this research as a function of three decision variables (decision procedure, decision unit and decision method) and the quality of these variables determines the quality of decision making.

A framework is developed to evaluate the decision quality. One resolved and one unresolved cases in resolving municipal boundary conflict were selected for the evaluation. The unresolved case is further qualified with a changing process of decision making to investigate whether SMCE as a decision method will produce a better decision. The framework reveals that a method is good when it satisfies technical quality; organizational capability; user’s satisfaction and when it increases collaboration in a group decision situation.

Evaluation of the resolved and unresolved cases shows that the choice of a decision method does not matter too much but the procedure does for conflict resolution. It is also found that a decision unit can simplify its conflicting interests and can adopt a technically less qualified method in order to resolve the conflict. Both cases have some weaknesses which need to be overcome to enhance the decision making quality. The evaluation shows that SMCE will enhance the decision quality in the changing process because 1) it has the quality of a good decision method in that process; and 2) it can overcome the identified weaknesses of the resolved and the unresolved cases. The research also finds that there are some circumstances that can limit the appropriateness of SMCE.

For the resolution of boundary conflict, it is extremely important to consider more alternatives during the mediation which can foster the resolution process.

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Acknowledgements

Happy Time! No need to think of decision procedure, decision unit and decision method to structure the writing of this section. It happens because of my two supervisors. One supervisor taught me how to think globally and another supervisor instructed me how to implement those diverse thinking locally into my thesis. I am honouring them to decide who is who.

My sincere gratitude to my first supervisor Dr. Ir. L.G.J. Boerboom who trained me how to write a scientific thesis. None of the lines of this thesis would be readable without his extensive contribution.

Thanks Emile. You not only gave this thesis a proper shape in terms of argument, logic, discussion etc. but also you were patience enough to check all of my article problems in this thesis. Your cooperation extended beyond my study here. You have listened all of my personal troubles carefully and helped me out of the problems.

My earnest thanks go to Dr. M. A. Sharifi who has always been generous in offering interesting discussions and opinion despite his busy schedule.

I am very much grateful to Ms. Monika Kuffer and Dr. Richard Sliuzas who were always careful about me and my study here in ITC.

My fieldwork would not have been so pleasant without the opportunity given by Gina Gacusan, Economic Development Specialist, NEDA-CAR. I shall never forget her hospitality. I would like to thank Mr. Crescencio C. Pacalso, Mr. Attorney Noel Sabog, Mr. Benjamin A. Ventura, Chief, Mr. Adrian A. Cerezo, Mr. William H. Estaben, Mr. Romeo T. Lopez, Mr. Mariano T. Caluza, and Mr. Prudencio Mendoza. Without their cooperation my fieldwork would have been meaningless.

I shall always value the criticism that Bekim made about my thesis. Probably he did not know that by this way my thesis got escape from so many mistakes that I would do. Whenever I faced difficulty in my thesis Anny appeared like an angel to save me. How can I disregard her contribution? Dear UPLAs, you made my study pleasant here. I am remembering you all.

Last but not the least my family, I feel very much indebted to Shatu and my parent who had to endure my absence for a long time. I am sorry for keeping you long waiting. Your prayers, moral support and love are precious asset for me.

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Table of contents

1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................1

1.1. Background ..............................................................................................................................1 1.2. Research Problem.....................................................................................................................2 1.3. Research Objective...................................................................................................................3 1.4. Research Questions ..................................................................................................................3 1.5. Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................4 1.6. Working Definitions.................................................................................................................6 1.7. Research Method......................................................................................................................8 1.8. Thesis Structure........................................................................................................................8

2. Evaluating Decision Quality ............................................................................................11

2.1. Boundary and Boundary Conflicts .........................................................................................11 2.2. Qualifying Decision Process ..................................................................................................13

2.2.1. Qualifying Decision Procedure ......................................................................................15 2.2.2. Qualifying Decision Unit ...............................................................................................17 2.2.3. Qualifying Decision Method ..........................................................................................19

2.2.3.1. Participatory 3-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM)...................................................19 2.2.3.2. Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) .................................................................................19 2.2.3.3. Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) .............................................................20 2.2.3.4. Quality of a Decision Method ................................................................................22

2.3. Qualifying Decision Outcome................................................................................................23 2.4. Conclusion..............................................................................................................................24

3. Methodology .....................................................................................................................27

3.1. Selection of Study Area..........................................................................................................27 3.2. Data Collection.......................................................................................................................30 3.3. Data Analysis .........................................................................................................................33

3.3.1. Literature Review ...........................................................................................................33 3.3.2. Statistical Analysis .........................................................................................................34 3.3.3. Spatial Analysis..............................................................................................................34

3.3.3.1. Generation of Spatial Alternatives .........................................................................34 3.3.3.2. Spatial Evaluation Criteria .....................................................................................40

4. Study Area.........................................................................................................................43

4.1. Overview of Boundary Conflicts at CAR ..............................................................................43 4.1.1. Inter-Regional Conflict...................................................................................................44 4.1.2. Inter-Provincial Conflict within CAR ............................................................................45 4.1.3. Municipal Conflict .........................................................................................................45 4.1.4. Status Summary of the Petitions Filed in the Provincial Council of Benguet................46 4.1.5. Cause-Effect Relationship of Boundary Conflict...........................................................47

4.2. The Study Area.......................................................................................................................49 4.2.1. Province of Benguet .......................................................................................................49 4.2.2. Municipality of Kapangan..............................................................................................51

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4.2.3. Municipality of Tublay.................................................................................................. 51 4.2.4. Municipality of La Trinidad .......................................................................................... 51

4.3. Legal Process of Boundary Conflict Resolution ................................................................... 51 4.3.1. Legal Procedure for Settling Municipal Boundary Dispute .......................................... 52 4.3.2. Decision Unit Involvement in the Legal Process .......................................................... 53 4.3.3. Decision Unit in a Changing Decision Process ............................................................. 55

4.4. Conclusion............................................................................................................................. 57

5. Evaluation of the Quality of Decisions So Far................................................................59

5.1. Decision Problems of the Selected Cases .............................................................................. 59 5.2. Comparative Description of Decision Making between the Cases........................................ 61

5.2.1. Decision Process............................................................................................................ 61 5.2.1.1. Decision Procedure................................................................................................ 64 5.2.1.2. Decision Unit......................................................................................................... 66 5.2.1.3. Decision Method.................................................................................................... 68

5.2.2. Decision Outcome ......................................................................................................... 69 5.3. Evaluation of Decision Quality ............................................................................................. 70

5.3.1. Scoring of the Criteria ................................................................................................... 70 5.3.2. Evaluation Result........................................................................................................... 71

5.4. Identification and Analysis of Weaknesses ........................................................................... 72 5.5. Conclusion............................................................................................................................. 73

6. SMCE to Enhance Decision Quality ...............................................................................75

6.1. Boundary Conflict as a Regional Issue.................................................................................. 75 6.2. Evaluation of the Decision Quality in a Changing Process................................................... 76

6.2.1. Quality of the Decision Procedure................................................................................. 76 6.2.2. Quality of the Decision Unit.......................................................................................... 78 6.2.3. Quality of the Decision Method (SMCE)...................................................................... 79

6.2.3.1. Generation of Alternative Boundary Options........................................................ 79 6.2.3.2. Identification of Conflicting Interests (Criteria).................................................... 80 6.2.3.3. Importance of the Criteria (Weighting) ................................................................. 81 6.2.3.4. Standardization of the Criteria............................................................................... 83 6.2.3.5. Evaluation of the Alternatives ............................................................................... 83 6.2.3.6. Analysis of the Evaluation Result ......................................................................... 84 6.2.3.7. Supporting the Mediation ...................................................................................... 88 6.2.3.8. Qualifying SMCE.................................................................................................. 88

6.3. Discussion.............................................................................................................................. 90

7. Conclusions and Recommendations ................................................................................95

7.1. Conclusion............................................................................................................................. 95 7.2. Recommendation for Further Research ................................................................................. 98

8. References .......................................................................................................................101

9. Appendices ......................................................................................................................107

Appendix-1: List of conflicting municipalties in CAR ................................................................... 107

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Appendix-2: Interview Questionnaire ..............................................................................................111 Appendix-3: The persons interviewed and the type of information gathered. .................................114 Appendix-4: Questionnaire for the participants of the general orientation on boundary conflict seminar in November 7th, 2006 .......................................................................................................115 Appendix-5: Statistical analysis of questionnaire ............................................................................117 Appendix-6: Narrative Description of the Boundary between La Union and Benguet....................121 Appendix-7: The decision unit involvement of the resolved and the unresolved cases...................123

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List of figures Figure 1-1: A framework for decision support in a decision situation (adopted from (Nyerges, 2001)) ................ 5 Figure 1-2: Interaction of decision variables and its emerging properties .............................................................. 6 Figure 1-3: Schematic diagram of research flow..................................................................................................... 8 Figure 2-1: The anatomy of conflict (Mostert, 1998)............................................................................................ 13 Figure 2-2: Alternative approaches of dispute resolution (Brown, 1995) ............................................................. 16 Figure 2-3: Contenders locating the Municipal Boundary Monument (MBM) in a P3DM.................................. 19 Figure 2-4: Two interpretations of a two-dimensional decision problem (1: table of maps, 2: map of tables)..... 21 Figure 2-5: Two paths of spatial multi criteria evaluation .................................................................................... 21 Figure 2-6: Framework for evaluation of decision quality.................................................................................... 25 Figure 3-1: Map of the study area (Not to Scale) .................................................................................................. 28 Figure 3-2: Map of conflicting cases (Source: LMS, 2006).................................................................................. 28 Figure 3-3: Conflicting relation of the municipalities within Benguet province................................................... 29 Figure 3-4: Methods of data collection ................................................................................................................. 30 Figure 3-5: Pictures taken during interview .......................................................................................................... 31 Figure 3-6: Presentation on SMCE before questionnaire survey .......................................................................... 31 Figure 3-7: Flow diagram for the generation of Natural Boundary alternative..................................................... 35 Figure 3-8: Map showing the Natural boundary in the conflicting area................................................................ 35 Figure 3-9: Flow diagram for the generation of Tax Line Boundary alternative .................................................. 36 Figure 3-10: Map showing the Tax Line boundary in the conflicting area ........................................................... 36 Figure 3-11: Flow diagram for the generation of Highway Boundary alternative ................................................ 37 Figure 3-12: Map showing the Highway boundary in the conflicting area........................................................... 37 Figure 3-13: The conflicting municipalities with the conflicting area .................................................................. 38 Figure 3-14: The natural boundary........................................................................................................................ 38 Figure 3-15: Tax Line A alternative boundary...................................................................................................... 39 Figure 3-16: Highway A alternative boundary...................................................................................................... 39 Figure 3-17: Tax Line B alternative boundary ...................................................................................................... 39 Figure 3-18: Highway B alternative boundary ...................................................................................................... 39 Figure 3-19: Conflicting interests are represented as spatial criteria for the evaluation of alternatives................ 42 Figure 4-1: Local government structure in the Philippines adopted from (Cabo, 1998)....................................... 43 Figure 4-2: Cause-effect relationship of boundary conflict................................................................................... 47 Figure 4-3: Map of conflicting cases (Source: LMS, 2006).................................................................................. 50 Figure 4-4: Flow diagram showing the legal procedure for boundary conflict resolution (synthesized from the Local Government Code of the Philippines ’91)................................................................................................... 52 Figure 5-1: Conflicting common boundary point in the resolved case (MBM 10) ............................................... 60 Figure 5-2: Location of MBMs and conflicting area in the unresolved case ........................................................ 60 Figure 5-3: Activities undertaken in the resolved case (synthesized from the documents collected from the provincial council)................................................................................................................................................. 62 Figure 5-4: Activities undertaken to resolve the boundary conflict in the unresolved case (synthesized from the minutes, resolutions and other documents collected from the conflicting municipalities).................................... 63 Figure 5-5: Alternative boundary lines based on position and tax map in resolved case...................................... 70 Figure 5-6: Weaknesses in decision process keep sustaining status quo............................................................... 72 Figure 6-1: Decision procedure to resolve boundary conflict in the current process ............................................ 77 Figure 6-2: Criteria tree representing the primary perspective of Tublay ............................................................. 81 Figure 6-3: Criteria tree representing the primary perspective of La Trinidad...................................................... 81 Figure 6-4: Criteria tree representing the equal weight perspective of Tublay ..................................................... 82 Figure 6-5: Criteria tree representing the equal weight perspective of La Trinidad.............................................. 82 Figure 6-6: Standardization of ‘increase municipal area’ criterion for La Trinidad.............................................. 82

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Figure 6-7: Performance of criteria and objectives to reach goal spatially (Tublay primary perspective-the Natural Boundary Alternative) .............................................................................................................................. 84 Figure 6-8: Spatial evaluation of the alternatives for Tublay (primary perspective)............................................. 85 Figure 6-9: Spatial evaluation of the alternatives for La Trinidad (primary perspective) ..................................... 86 Figure 6-10: Aggregated performance of different alternatives based on Tublay primary perspective ................ 86 Figure 6-11: Aggregated performance of different alternatives based on La Trinidad primary perspective ........ 86 Figure 6-12: Aggregated performance of different alternatives based on Tublay equal weight perspective ........ 87 Figure 6-13: Aggregated performance of different alternatives based on La Trinidad equal weight perspective.87 Figure 6-14: Disputed cases between La Trinidad and Tublay municipalities...................................................... 90 Figure 6-15: Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation model in ModelBuilder ............................................................ 91 Figure 6-16: Interface of Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation model .................................................................... 92 Figure 6-17: Output as a map of Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation method ...................................................... 92 Figure 6-18: Political boundary bisects the cultural boundary (hypothetical example) ........................................ 93 Figure 7-1: Complexity diagram for conflict resolution........................................................................................ 99

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List of tables Table 2.1: Comparison of theories for boundary selection adopted from (Aloe, 2006)........................................ 12 Table 2.2: Structure and contingencies of decision unit determines its quality..................................................... 18 Table 2.3: Negotiation approaches and its attributes............................................................................................. 18 Table 2.4: Structure and quality of decision unit determines the quality of decision outcome ............................. 23 Table 3.1: Required and collected data to answer research questions................................................................... 30 Table 3.2: Checklist of collected spatial and attribute Data .................................................................................. 32 Table 3.3: Checklist of Collected Documents ....................................................................................................... 33 Table 4.1: Inter-regional boundary conflict in CAR (Adapted from LMS, 2006) ................................................ 44 Table 4.2: Intra and inter provincial conflict summary in CAR (Adapted from LMS, 2006)............................... 45 Table 4.3: Inter-municipal conflicts with area (hectares) in Benguet province (Adapted from LMS, 2006)........ 46 Table 5.1: Comparison of the selection of meeting venue in the resolved case .................................................... 65 Table 5.2: Structure of decision unit involvement in the decision processes ........................................................ 66 Table 5.3: Comparative scores of the criteria for quality evaluation between the cases ....................................... 71 Table 6.1: Summarized table generated from SMCE can facilitate decision making ........................................... 87 Table 6.2: Output as table after evaluation of different alternatives ..................................................................... 93

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Acronyms BIR : Bureau of Internal Revenue CAR : Cordillera Administrative Region CBA : Cost Benefit Analysis Comelec : Commission of Election DAO : Department Administrative Order DBM : Department of Budget and Management DENR : Department of Environment and Natural Resource DILG : Department of Interior and Local Government DM : Decision Method DP : Decision Process DU : Decision Unit EO : Executive Order ExCom : Executive Committee GIS : Geographical Information System IRA : Internal Revenue Allotment IRR : Implementing Rules and Regulations LCE : Local Chief Executives LGC : Local Government Code LGU : Local Government Unit LMB : Lands Management Bureau LMS : Land Management Service MBM : Municipal Boundary Monument MCDM : Multi Criteria Decision Making MCE : Multi Criteria Evaluation MOA : Memorandum of Agreement MPDC : Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator NAMRIA : National Mapping and Resource Information Authority NEDA : National Economic Development Authority NGA : National Government Agency NSO : National Statistics Office P3DM : Participatory 3 Dimensional Modelling PC : Provincial Council RA : Republic Act RDC : Regional Development Council RO : Republic Order RS : Remote Sensing RTD : Regional Technical Director SB : Sangguniang Bayan (Municipal Council) SC : Steering Committee SMCE : Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation SP : Sangguniang Panlalawigan (Provincial Council) SSCE : Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation TWG : Technical Working Group USEC : Under Secretary vs. : Versus

ENHANCING THE QUALITY OF DECISION MAKING? INTRODUCING SPATIAL MULTI CRITERIA EVALUATION (SMCE) FOR BOUNDARY CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN THE PHILIPPINES

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1. Introduction

This chapter discusses the background of research, research problem, research objectives, research questions and research method. This research attempts to evaluate decision quality. Decision making cases are selected to resolve spatial conflict in the Philippines. One resolved and one unresolved cases have been selected for this research. Evaluations are made on both cases to understand the differences in decision quality between the cases. This comparative evaluation investigates why a decision making failed to achieve intended objective whereas other succeeded in conflict resolution. The unresolved case is further qualified with a changing process of decision making to investigate whether SMCE will produce a better decision. This chapter introduces a concept of quality evaluation for decision making. The structure of this thesis ends this chapter.

1.1. Background

When the interests at stake are too important, it quite often happens that people do not sure what to decide (Bouyssou et al., 2000). A decision making would be an anxiety for those involved in decision making if they don’t have pleasant outcome of past decisions. They want to be ensured that the decision they are going to make has acknowledged all the conflicting interests at stake to reach a good decision. Unfortunately, it is not obvious what constitutes a good decision (Keren and Bruin, 2003).

That is why; over the centuries people have recognized the need for better and more defensible decisions and have tried to offer systematic and structured decision aid (Keren and Bruin, 2003; Brown, 2005). The earlier decision aids were largely in the form of quantitative models adapted to a rich variety of decision tasks. A decision aid needs more than that to be useful. It has to take into account the capabilities and needs of the people who will implement the aid and use it, and be based on a thorough grasp of the specific decision making setting (Brown, 2005). Thus it is important to understand the context of decision making for the successful application of a decision aid to make a good quality decision.

A decision making may be broadly constructed as the process of selecting from a set of options the alternative(s) that are most likely to lead to desired outcomes (Balasubramanian et al., 1999). When a decision is made to resolve conflict, the process of conflict resolution can be viewed as a decision process. Thus, the quality of a conflict resolution is determined by the quality of a decision process to resolve the conflict. In one way, a decision process consists of three sets of distinguishable decision making variables: decision procedure, decision method and decision unit. Hence, the quality of a decision making is dependent upon the quality of these three variables. By changing the quality of one of the three variables one can change the quality of a decision making. But very often, the change in one variable requires changing in other variables as well.

Bouyssoue et al. (2000) argued in favour of some formal decision methods e.g. multi criteria evaluation, cost-benefit analysis, voting etc. But the authors stated that there cannot be a best method and seem empirically correct in all contexts and hence require evaluating the quality of a method. The combination of Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) methods and spatial analysis (GIS) can generate a new method called spatial multiple criteria evaluation (SMCE) (Zarkesh, 2005). It offers room for the inclusion of the interests of multiple stakeholders in a conflict resolution decision. It can also take into


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account the stakeholders’ preferences in decision making which could provide a strong basis for the evaluation result to be acceptable. In spite of having these qualities of SMCE as a decision method, it is necessary to verify whether it will fit in a particular problem setting (spatial conflict resolution) to enhance the decision making quality.

1.2. Research Problem

Local Government Code ‘91 in the Philippines served so far as a guideline to resolve boundary conflict of the country. The code specified decision procedure and decision unit to solve the problem. It also highlighted the necessity of amicable settlement but nothing is mentioned about decision method. Because of this, people used different decision methods in the past to arrive at a decision. One of the successful applied decision methods is Participatory 3-D Modelling (P3DM) (Rambaldi et al., 2002). But this method also was not able to address all levels (e.g. municipal, provincial) of boundary conflict. In general, decisions made so far could not address the issue properly and people are not satisfied with the decision making. This dissatisfaction evokes the questions like:

How were conflicts dealt with in the past, and what lessons can be drawn from such analysis?

Why decisions were poor quality: does it because of the procedural limitation; or because of the unwillingness of people involved in dispute or incapability of people who are assisting to resolve; or because of the improper selection of decision method?

Now, the Task Force is trying to adopt different decision process to address the problem. Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) as a decision method has been applied for a long time in different problem settings even though it is not a very common application in the field of boundary demarcation. The Task Force is intended to apply SMCE as a decision method to assist in decision making towards resolving boundary dispute in the region which stirs up the following question:

Whether the application of a new method like SMCE would be able to improve the decision quality?

Thus it is indispensable to develop a framework to explore the quality of decision process in terms of its procedure, people involved in decision making and the method they used. Qualification of these variables determines the quality of decision made so far. Using the same framework, it is also possible to evaluate decision quality in the changing decision process beforehand.

There are two major divisions of research in the field of decision quality evaluation. On the one hand is based on the application of computer aided decision making tools to improve decision quality (e.g. Timmermans, 1996; Larsen, 2003; Nyerges, 2001; Pedro et al., 2004 etc.). On the other hand is to look at individual component (e.g. data quality, visualization, decision makers quality, uncertainty handling etc.) of decision making and explore the impact of that component in decision quality (e.g. Borchers, 2005; Raghunathan, 1999; Mennecke, 1997; Carmeli and Schaubroeck, 2006). No attempt so far evident in the literature to look on both aspects together to evaluate decision quality. This research is an attempt to bridges this gap.


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1.3. Research Objective

The main objective of this research is to contribute to establish a methodology to evaluate the impact of changes in decision process on decision quality.

People can change the variables of a decision process to achieve a good quality decision. But it is uncertain whether this change in the decision process will really change the decision making quality. Thus it is necessary to develop a methodology can provide feedback of such changes toward the improvement of decision quality.

The sub objectives of this research are as follows:

1. to describe, compare and qualify decision making around boundary conflict so far This objective elucidates decision making with comparison around boundary demarcation decisions in terms of its procedure, method and unit. This objective also evaluates decision quality based on the comparative description.

2. to identify and analyze the weaknesses of decision making around boundary conflict so far This objective identifies the weaknesses of earlier made decisions and explores the reasons behind.

3. to explore the appropriateness of Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) as a decision aid tool in conflict resolution Every method has its own merits and demerits in a particular problem setting. Learning from the past and analyzing the desires and capability of decision unit, this objective investigates the significance of a newly proposed method “SMCE” to improve decision quality.

1.4. Research Questions

In order to achieve the research objectives, following research questions are addressed in this research.

1. to describe, compare and qualify the decision making around boundary conflict so far

The following questions are investigated to reach this objective: 1.1. What procedure was followed to make decisions?

The answer provides the quality of the followed decision procedure. The question examines the procedural clarity, its legal support, how it confirms the decision etc.

1.2. Who were involved in decision making and their role? This question investigates the structure of people involved in decisions making. It also identifies the dynamics of involvement together with their stakes and nature of involvement. The question goes further about the decision maker’s experience, problem solving strategy, sensitiveness to the problem etc.

1.3. What methods have been used to make the decisions? The answer elaborates the way of choosing particular course of action in boundary demarcation decisions. The question also analyses the method’s acceptability, its technical soundness etc.

1.4. How the conflicts among the members of decision unit resolved? This question investigates the conflicting interests of the people involved and how those interests addressed in decision making.


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1.5. What was the rationality of the decisions? This question finds out the rationality of the methods applied in decision making. Whether the method was able to improve collaboration among the contenders and its ability to capture the conflicting interests and process those interests to make a recommendation.

1.6. How the knowledge of earlier made decisions reflected in the next decision? In every time when decision methods were applied, the decision unit might face the following:

- troubles to apply the method in terms of expertise - realized something is missing and needs to include - goodness of the method used

This question investigates the application of acquired knowledge (experiences).

2. to identify and analyze the weaknesses of decision making around boundary conflict so far

The following questions are investigated to reach this objective: 2.1. What are the weaknesses in decisions made?

This question identifies the weaknesses of decision making that need to be addressed.

2.2. What are the reasons behind the weaknesses? This question investigates the reasons behind the identified weaknesses.

3. to explore the appropriateness of Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) as a decision aid tool in conflict resolution

The following questions are investigated to reach this objective: 3.1. In which circumstances SMCE fits as a method?

Based on the case studies this question categorizes the decision problems and conflicts so far raised and identifies the circumstances where SMCE fits as a method considering the strengths and weaknesses of SMCE.

3.2. Whether SMCE is capable to address the identified weaknesses? This question looks into the nature of conflicting issues and evaluates the capability of SMCE to address the conflicting issues.

3.3. What are the institutional settings availing to adopt the method? For successful implementation of a new method, it is important to know institutional contexts that will implement the method. That is why; this question looks into the institutional capacity in the light of following issues:

- the procedure that will follow to solve the problem - availability of time to deal the problem - availability of required data and expertise - attitude of decision unit towards the method

1.5. Conceptual Framework

Three variables can be extracted from the definition of decision making given by Balasubraminian et al. (1999): decision method, decision unit and decision procedure. Firstly, selection of options requires “decision method” that contributes to the appropriateness of selection. Secondly, an individual or a set of individuals when faced with a problem make a decision. I call this set of individual “Decision Unit”. And finally, the various steps and stages where “Decision Unit” engages in, either explicitly or implicitly for making a decision, I call that sequence “Decision Procedure”. Absence of any one of the variables does not produce any decision; hence these are extremely important for decision making. Thus the quality of a decision can be considered as a function of the quality of these three independent sets of variables, not explicitly but considering other factors will be exploited by one of these three variables.


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The concept can be explained by a framework for decision support developed by Nyerges and Jankowski (Nyerges, 2001) and shown in figure 1-1. The authors established a foundation for understanding many aspects of a task decision with the word construct. I explain each of the construct of this framework; categorize it into my concept; and model my concept in figure 1-2.

Figure 1-1: A framework for decision support in a decision situation (adopted from (Nyerges, 2001))

The framework is composed of convening, process and outcome constructs relevant to any decision situation. In convening aspect, Construct 1 explains the necessary information required. In my view the required information determines the data needs to be processed. This ultimately determines the type of method needs to process the data to get the required information. For instance, flipping a coin does not require any input data to evaluate to get information. Construct 2 deals with organizational and institutional arrangements that structure the way of a problem is interpreted. This construct is also important in my model as this determines the acceptance of any method and procedure that should follow to make the decision. Construct 3 is clearly similar with my decision unit concept. Construct 4 and Construct 5 deal with decision methods in order to come up with a rational decision. Whereas, construct 6 is emerging information what I call knowledge but I consider it as an emerging property of the interaction between decision procedure and decision method. My argument, it is the unit who gains knowledge from the application of particular decision method in a particular instance of the procedure. The unit can exploit the knowledge for further decision making instances.

Construct 8 reveals working relationship as an outcome. I also consider this as an emerging property. This emerging property comes out from the interaction between decision unit and decision procedure. In my opinion if there is no decision unit, there will be no relationship and in spite of having decision unit if it doesn’t interact in the procedure, there is no chance of changing relationship. But the change will occur only if the members of the unit disagree with the course of action during the interaction. Construct 7 reveals the decision outcome which is the core of any decision process and is the central element of my model. Figure 1-2 indicates three bi-lateral interactions between decision variables e.g. decision process vs. decision method; decision process vs. decision unit; and decision unit vs. decision method. Each of the interactions emerges new property e.g. knowledge base; conflict and resolution;


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and rationality. The interaction among the three variables produce decision and the quality of these three variables determines the decision quality.

Figure 1-2: Interaction of decision variables and its emerging properties

This research explores the quality of decisions around boundary conflict resolution cases in the Philippines using the concept from figure 1-2.

1.6. Working Definitions

This section characterizes each of the components of my model to operationalize it in my research. In chapter 2; each of the components is elaborated.

Decision Quality Decision quality is referred in this research as the quality of a decision that has been made. It includes the quality of the decision process that has been used for making the decision and the quality of the outcome of that decision. Thus decision making quality is referred as the quality of decision process.

Decision Process Bouyssour et al. (2000) defined a decision process as a sequence of interactions amongst persons and/or organizations characterizing one or more objects or concerns (the “problems”). A decision process is a holistic and integrated approach to decision making. Teisman (1995) (referred in (Peters and Hulscher, 2006) defines a decision process as a sequence of decisions taken by different decision unit to realize a conversion of ideas to actual societal changes.

Decision Procedure Decision procedure is the sequence of steps that needs to follow to make and implement a decision. Hoogerwerf (1978) in (Peters and Hulscher, 2006) identified the following steps generally considered in a decision procedure: (1) Agenda building; (2) Policy or decision preparation; (3) Policy or decision making; (4) Realization of the decision or policy; (5) Evaluation; (6) Feedback; and (7) Policy termination or revision of the decision.


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Decision Unit The participants in a decision process is defined as decision unit (Bouyssou et al., 2000). Herman (2001) filtered this definition. He said the decision unit is the active participants of a decision process. However, the following definition of Peters and Hulscher (2006, pp.180) matches with our concept of decision unit in this research and accepted as operational definition.

“The decision process takes place in a network of actors that participate during the decision process. The network is defined as the changing patterns of relations in between mutual dependent actors that establish around policy problems which form, maintain or change due to a sequence of interactions in the decision process. In this network, actors keep up long relation patterns. However, not all relations in such a network have to be activated constantly. The activated part of the network is called the arena. A decision in a certain arena may affect other arenas. Actors participate in different arenas, but may also decide to drop out, for example because they do not have an interest anymore in the next arena.”

Decision Method Decision methods are the techniques that support the decision unit to decide and to carry out in different steps/stages in a decision procedure.

Knowledge Knowledge documents relevant experience from the process (Pedro et al., 2004). Knowledge tells about how decisions were made; which either could be replicate or the decision unit should be aware of it to reuse.

Conflict and Resolution Conflict is disagreement and resolution is the process of coming up to an agreement. Conflict is a situation perceived by the actors or the observer as a discord between interacting units (Karskens, 1995 referred in (Deru, 2006)). Complexity is a distinguishing feature of decision making which emerges from the conflicts between various objectives or priorities (Weimer and Vining, 1992 cited in (Cho, 1999)) that the decision unit is interested.

Rationality Brown (Brown, 2005) defined a rational choice is one that advances decision maker’s welfare effectively and logically, based on everything decision maker knows, judges, and feels. By welfare he means happiness, satisfaction, desirability and when quantified, utility. Decision maker would have achieved ideal rationality when absolutely everything in his mind has been processed with impeccable logic. Since this is not achievable, Brown (2005) argued the rationality that is achievable called subrational. March and Simon (March and Simon, 1993) named the subrationality as bounded rationality for organizational decision making.

The notion of rationality has both normative dimension, in that it points to what one should do in order to attain a given end, and positive applications, as it is used to describe, evaluate, explain, predict and justify (Bicchieri, 1993). There are two major category of rationality identified by Sager (1994) (referred in (Larsen, 2003)), e.g. instrumental rationality and communicative rationality. Communicative rationality highlights the participation and hence dialogues are central elements because focus is not on an “objective” means and end calculation. On the other hand instrumental rationality mainly focuses on improves and supports the analytic dimension.


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1.7. Research Method

Figure 1-3 outlines the research method that is followed in this research. Two decision making cases in resolving boundary conflicts are selected. Decision quality of those two cases is evaluated based on a decision quality evaluation framework developed in chapter 2. Strength and weakness of applied decision procedures, decision methods, decision units and decision outcomes are identified of those cases. An evaluation is also done using the same framework to qualify decision making using SMCE as a decision in a changing decision process in one of the cases.

Figure 1-3: Schematic diagram of research flow.

1.8. Thesis Structure

The outcome of this research is an exploratory, explanatory and predictive document. It explores decision quality based on decision making cases. It analyzes the decision quality in terms of decision variables. This research also predicts the decision quality in the light of a newly proposed decision method called SMCE. Thus the organization of this thesis is as follows:

Chapter 1 presents an introduction for entire research; the research problem, the objectives of this research and a list of research questions, which this research is designed to answer. The methodology of answering these questions and the answers of these questions are introduced in next chapters and hence there is a brief description for the contents of each chapter.

Chapter 2 provides a comprehensive and critical review of literature on contemporary theories of decision quality. From this review a framework for decision quality evaluation is developed. Literature regarding boundary conflict types, sources of conflicts etc also reviewed. Different decision methods including SMCE with justification of their application are also discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 3 describes the characteristics and rationality of choosing the case study areas in this research. To meet the objectives of this research the data requirements and how it is collected is outlined in chapter in this chapter. Different analyses (statistical, spatial) of collected data to answer the research questions are also appended.


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Chapter 4 characterizes with an overview of boundary conflicts of the study area. It also describes the existing laws, regulations and institutions that shape the decision making for the resolution of boundary conflicts.

Chapter 5 focuses the cases to evaluate decision quality using the developed framework in chapter 2. It goes detail about who made the decision, how the decision was made and following which procedure. This chapter also identifies the drawbacks of decision making from the insight gain through case studies and interview during fieldwork. The drawbacks are analysed and grouped into decision variables.

An evaluation of decision quality is undertaken in chapter 6 considering SMCE will be used as decision method. Same quality evaluation framework is used to evaluate with changing decision procedure and decision unit together with SMCE. The identified drawbacks in previous chapter are also investigated in the light of SMCE- whether SMCE is capable to handle those issues. The underlying conflicting interests of contenders in the case of La Trinidad vs. Tublay are structured. Alternatives are evaluated using those conflicting interests to present an example of how SMCE helps to come up with an agreement among the contenders.

Chapter 7 presents the conclusion of this research and recommends for further research to bridge the weakness of this research


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2. Evaluating Decision Quality

The purpose of this chapter is to develop a framework to evaluate decision quality. The framework is important because it is a mirror which reflects the goodness of a decision. People hesitate to make decisions because they are uncertain whether their decision will produce a good result (Gacusan, 2006). This framework will act a guide to evaluate the quality of a decision making beforehand. It will also lead the way of comparing the quality among different decisions. In section 2.4, this framework is developed based on key literature on decision quality evaluation.

In this research attempt is made to evaluate decision quality leading to resolution of boundary conflict. Hence, section 2.1 explores boundary, its type, sources of conflict etc. The main purpose of this chapter is to evaluate decision quality. Hence section 2.2 explores the question “what constitute a good decision?”. Towards qualifying a decision making section 2.2.1 identifies different approaches of conflict resolution while qualifying decision procedure. Section 2.2.2 qualifies decision unit. This research also explores the applicability of decision methods to resolve boundary conflict. That is why different decision methods with justification of their consideration are discussed in section 2.2.3. How to evaluate the quality of a decision method is also framed in this section. Special emphasis is put on SMCE method because of the decision maker’s preference in this method. Hence, working principle of SMCE is appended after its justification.

“What constitutes a good decision?”- this topic has received relatively little attention in literature; literature in decision making field is mainly occupied with the topic to help improve a decision. A definition of an acceptable set of criteria for decision’s goodness is problematic, and many approaches can be distinguished. In general, two kinds of approaches to measure the quality of a decision can be found (Zakay, 1984; Timmermans and Vlek, 1996; Keren and Bruin, 2003). Firstly, evaluating decision quality based on decision process; and secondly, based on decision outcome. Section 2.2 and 2.3 discuss each approach respectively.

2.1. Boundary and Boundary Conflicts

A boundary is a line that divides one geographic area from another (Smith, 2007). It encompasses a barrier between two different objects. Typical boundaries are a hedge, fence or wall and any associated watercourse such as a stream, ditch or drain (Marshall and Moonen, 2002). Table 2.1 lists and compares the quality of different forms of boundaries.

Several types of boundary dispute can be distinguished. For instance, the position of a boundary could be disputed because of inaccurate survey, outdated records etc. Geographic features such as rivers and mountain ranges are frequently used as natural boundaries because their position is fixed, yet over time such features change because of natural geophysical processes. When a natural boundary changes, a dispute may arise over the position of a new boundary. Sometimes a dispute may occur because of the control over vital resources. For example, boundary conflict between the municipality of Itogon and Tuba in the Philippines is caused because of the control over coal mine. Another kind of dispute can be referred as ‘territorial dispute’ occurs when an authority claims an area existing in some other’s territory.


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Table 2.1: Comparison of theories for boundary selection adopted from (Aloe, 2006) Type Description Advantage Drawback Current Example When InitiatedNode Boundaries follow path

of minimum population. Minimizes transport cost. Promotes statistical integrity.

Invisible. Substantial effect in rural regions.

Costa Rica; Chile; England; Italy

Throughout history.

Road Follows mass transit Stable, Visible, No maintenance cost

Bisect Community All over world Throughout history

Ridge Boundary follows mountaintops

Visible, Stable Inapplicable to plains Bohemia; Burma; Chile

Antiquity to 19th century

Drainage basin

Boundary separates drainage basins of rivers.

Minimizes conflict over vital resource

Gambia; Italy

Antiquity to 19th century

Topographic unity

Boundary outlines consistent topography

Visible Iran; Norway Antiquity to present

Military frontier

Boundary includes defensible perimeter

Inefficient to establish and maintain.

China; Paraguay Ancient empires to present

History Boundary placed where it used to be.

Can be stable Inflexible, Promotes litigation of old claims.

Israel Perpetual

Locus Boundary established at chosen distance from geographic feature

Easy to establish One-sided, in most cases Delaware; USA (from New Castle)

17th-19th century

Polygon Boundaries follow straight lines between landmarks.

Easy to draw. Tends to minimize boundary length

Lines themselves generally meaningless

District of Columbia, USA

17th-20th century

Waterway Boundary follows main channel of river or other body of water

Visible Where river is used for transportation, can divide regions

Japan; New Jersey, USA

18th-19th century

Rectangular coordinates

Boundaries follow chosen meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude

Easy to establish in remote unsettled areas

Ignores attributes of land. Ignores social organization. Requires accurate survey. Can create severe inefficiency if boundary crosses settlement

Egypt; Colorado, USA

19th century

Nation Uniting people with common culture.

Promotes cohesion Breaks multi-ethnic regions in unsatisfactory ways. Can create minority enclaves.

Iceland; Vietnam

19th-20th century

Size Boundaries location chosen mainly to equalize some quantity.

Tends to equalize budgets and workloads

Boundaries sometimes fall at inconvenient locations

California, USA 19th-20th century

Religion Uniting people of same religion

Divides pluralistic societies Bangladesh; Bosnia

20th century

Bioregion Boundaries separate ecosystems

Unites ecosystems and habitats. Promotes conservation.

Can overlap. Can create inefficient narrow strips.

Iceland Not yet widespread

Sometimes culturally distinct groups choose to exclude other distinct groups from their own territory, using force if necessary to create the separation. For example, the disputes in and around Jerusalem are based on the centuries-old occupation of religious sites by people of the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths. A dispute may involve more than one of the four types discussed above, and often all together, such as the ongoing dispute in the Jammu and Kashmīr region of southern Asia.


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The sources of these conflicts can vary also. It can start either from factual disagreement, or from conflicting goals, or from relationship, or any combination of those (Mostert, 1998). Figure 2-1 displays the anatomy of conflict among these sources. Often, disagreement on the course of action to be taken stems from a genuine disagreement on the facts of the case (Brehmer, 1993; Warfield, 1993 referred in (Mostert, 1998)). Often opinions differ as to the impact of certain activities, the risks involved, and the relevant laws. Goals refer to a desired situation and function as criteria for evaluating the relevant facts. The parties involved may agree on the effects of a certain action, but they will disagree on the desirability of these effects and, therefore, on the desirability of the action itself. The third source of conflicts is problems in the relations between the parties involved mainly because of the distrust and power struggles. Distrust is often caused by communication problems. Power struggles often take the form of competition over the sources of power- competencies, financial resources, access to information, status etc.

Figure 2-1: The anatomy of conflict (Mostert, 1998)

When a decision process faces deadlock to reach an agreement in any conflict, consideration of additional alternatives help the contenders to come up with consensus (Nagel and Mills, 1990). Since generation of alternative boundary options is still a manual work, literature regarding the theories of establishing different form of boundaries presented in table 2.1 could help in resolving deadlock.

2.2. Qualifying Decision Process

Bouyssour et al. (2000) defined a decision process as a sequence of interactions amongst persons and/or organizations characterizing one or more objects or concerns (the “problems”). A decision process is a holistic and integrated approach to decision making. Teisman (1995) (referred in (Peters and Hulscher, 2006) defines a decision process as a sequence of decisions taken by different decision unit to realize a conversion of ideas to actual societal changes. Process based approach spotlights on the process of decision making. It is similar to my concept in figure 1-2; it mainly focuses on the three components of that model: decision procedure, decision unit and decision method. The process oriented approach evaluates decision quality by the efforts that are considered to make a decision. The main argument for this process based approach is that decisions are made under uncertainty and required to evaluate it as good as possible (Edwards et al., 1984). This evaluation could be measuring


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the goodness of: decision procedure (Hoffberg and Korver, 2003); and/or decision unit (Zakay, 1984; Hermann, 2001; Keren and Bruin, 2003); and/or decision method (Timmermans and Vlek, 1996; Bouyssou et al., 2000; Keren and Bruin, 2003).

Hoffberg and Korver (2003) argued that a high quality decision comes with a warrant: a guarantee, not a guarantee of a certain outcome but a warranty that the process is used to arrive at a choice was a good one. A set of steps and rules provide that assurance. However, these assurance providing steps constitute the decision procedure. Zakay (1984) mentioned that decision making is done today in an environment more complex than ever before and this situation is posing a severe threat to decision’s quality. That is why he necessitates improving the quality of decision unit (e.g. training) to cope with this threat. Bouyssou et al. (2000) considered decision making is a very complex and difficult task. They argued that when the task is too complex or the interests at stake are too important, it quite often happens that it is not sure what to decide and, in many instances, decision makers resort to a decision support method: an informal one- tossing a coin, asking an oracle, visiting astrologer or a formal one- voting, cost-benefit analysis, multiple criteria decision analysis, decision trees etc. The authors stated that there cannot be a best method and seem empirically correct in all contexts and hence require evaluating the quality of a method.

The primary purpose of a decision method is to enhance the rationality of decision maker’s decision (Brown, 2005). The methods for making decisions must be based on some principle of rationality in order to gain acceptance among the members of a decision unit. Quite often it is not possible to comply with the principles of rational choice because of lack of reliable data. Either one may not have a complete picture of available or possible actions, or else the uncertainty of the effects of different actions may be large. While rational choice models are preoccupied with finding the optimal alternative, other criteria may be even more relevant in organizational decisions. As observed by March and Simon (March and Simon, 1993), organizations for various reasons search for satisfactory rather than optimal solutions. Simon (Simon, 1986) pointed out that an alternative can be defined as optimal if (1) there exists a set of criteria that permits all alternatives to be compared and (2) the alternative in question is preferred, by these criteria, to all other alternatives; whereas, an alternative is satisfactory if (1) there exists a set of criteria that describes minimally satisfactory alternatives and (2) the alternative in question meets or exceeds these criteria.

Exploring the parallels between human decision making and organizational decision making, March and Simon (1993) argued that organizations can never be perfectly rational, because their members have limited information-processing capabilities. They claimed that decision makers at best can achieve only limited forms of rationality, called bounded rationality, because decision makers (1) usually have to act on the basis of incomplete information, (2) are able to explore only a limited number of alternatives relating to any given decision, and (3) are unable to attach accurate values to outcomes. Bounded rationality is using limited information and limited analyses so as to obtain the first acceptable decision rather than the best possible solution. While optimality of solutions has been the main concern of decision-making theorists, it appears that real life decision-makers satisfice under bounded rationality conditions. After reviewing various decision making theories, Sager (1994) referred in (Larsen, 2003) described the rationality in four ways.

a) Instrumental rationality: Search for the best possible combination of means for given ends. A method that improves and supports the analytic dimension but not facilitate communication among the decision units.


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b) Bounded instrumental rationality: Search for satisfactory alternative. The decision method that improves and supports the analytic dimension and improves communication between planning actors, but communication is just a mean and not an end in itself.

c) Communicative rationality: Organize dialogue to promote democracy and personal growth and search for a solution agreed upon in undistorted communication. Utilized as a mean to improve the information level for communication but not considered as a primary objective.

d) Bounded communicative rationality: Counteract structural communicative distortions to promote equal opportunities and build support for a reasonable effective and fair alternative. Utilized as a mean to improve the information level for communication but not considered as a primary objective.

However, according to rational theory; a good decision is one in which the requirements of rationality are met and positive utility is maximized. Since the suitability of rationality to serve as criterion for decisions’ goodness is questionable, Zakay (1984) indicated that the concept of “bounded rationality” might serve better the purpose of defining decision’s goodness. According to this line of reasoning, Einhorn and Hogarth (Einhorn and Hogarth, 1981) defined decision quality as decisions or judgements that maximize or minimize some explicit and measurable criterion (e.g. profits, errors, time).

2.2.1. Qualifying Decision Procedure

Five elements need to be qualified while qualifying a decision procedure. Firstly, a decision procedure is a series of interrelated activities/steps that leads to a choice among alternatives and implementation of the chosen alternative. Hence, decision procedure is not for forever, it should have a clear beginning and end step. These steps should clearly explain what should be done when (Davis and Cosenza, 1993). Thus absence of a clear and understandable procedure might lead to obscurity in decision making (Zakay, 1984). Secondly, conformity of these steps with the existing rules and laws provides a legal support for the procedure (LWRRDC, 1998).

The opportunity of different parties to have their voice and placing of their interest and arguments in the decision table is very important to make a satisfactory decision in a group decision making (Briggs, 2003). Thus thirdly, how the parties were treated in making a decision also needs to be considered while evaluating the quality of a decision procedure in a group decision situation. The evaluation of particularly this criterion is dependent upon the choice of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) approach in decision making. If decision procedure is managed by a third party (see figure 2-2), the impartiality of the third party needs to be evaluated. A variety of ADR approaches existed in literature, Nagel and Mills (1990) explained each approach as follows.

Negotiation By negotiation one party attempts to convince and influence the other side of it’s point of view. The negotiation process is a process where both parties involved gain more information and understanding about the other side’s situation and point of view towards the ongoing dispute. Both sides can move towards each other by negotiating to find a solution that is appropriate for all of them.


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Figure 2-2: Alternative approaches of dispute resolution (Brown, 1995)

Facilitation In facilitation, a neutral facilitator is appointed by the conflicting parties to manage a dispute resolution process. The facilitator identifies issues and applies specialist techniques to resolve a conflict. The facilitator also assists by preparing an agenda, chairing meetings, distributing relevant information between the parties and steering them to reach agreed objectives. The process is less formal and more flexible than Mediation. It has wide application and is often used where there are several parties or groups involved with differing points of view.

Mediation Mediation is a process where an independent person is used to assist the parties in dispute to find a mutually acceptable solution. The mediator systematically works through the issues, help identify alternatives, and facilitate final agreement. The process is non-adversarial and focuses on the parties' resolving the dispute themselves using the skills of a mediator. The key principle of mediation is that the parties work together to arrive at an agreement that suits both. This is in contrast to litigation and arbitration where a judge or arbitrator imposes a decision which may be disappointing for one or both parties. A mediator is appointed by the parties to help establish effective communication and by doing so find a solution which satisfies both their needs and interests.

Arbitration Arbitration is an adversarial process, agreed by the parties in dispute, in which each party presents legal arguments and evidence, in accordance with formal procedures, to a mutually agreed arbitrator. The arbitrator makes a determination in favour of one of the parties. This determination is usually legally binding.

Litigation Litigation is an adversarial legal process conducted in a court of law, in accordance with strict procedures, where the parties present legal arguments and evidence to support their claims before a judge. The judge applies the relevant law to the evidence, resulting in a judgment in favour of one of the parties involved.

Fourthly, the neutrality of a decision place can play vital role in decision making because the choice of a venue may become a means of provocation for the groups to boycott the event (Jacobs, 2002; UNESCO, 2002). Also an open atmosphere, where members keep an open mind, participate equally and fairly, and learn from each others, often leads to better decision making (BCCPAC, 2005).


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Finally, decision can be good but at some stage of the procedure “finality of a decision” is important (Mintzberg et al., 1976). It means there is need to confirm the chosen action. Finality can be achieved in the following ways:

1) Klercker and Klercker (Klercker and Klercker, 1998) highlighted the necessity for an easily accessible decision document. Documentation of a decision, especially when the decision is made involving different parties, is necessary in terms of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to make it official;

2) Informing other relevant organizations of a decision through proper channels to make the decision effective. This step of decision procedure is especially important when decision unit (decision makers) differs from decision implementation unit (decision executors) (Zhang et al., 2005); and

3) Implementation of a decision in reality. Without implementation, however a good decision is, it has no value. Masalu (Masalu, 2000) advocated the necessity for implementation of decision involving the conflicting parties. Many conflicts are recursive in nature and are the result of poor implementation of decisions.

2.2.2. Qualifying Decision Unit

Herman (Hermann, 2001) identified three classes in decision unit after an examination of the various decision making models that have been proposed in the literature. These are:

a) Predominant Leader: A single individual who has the ability to stifle all opposition and dissent as well as the power to make a decision alone, if necessary.

b) Single Group: A set of individuals, all of whom are members of a single body, who collectively select a course of action in consultation with each other.

c) Coalition of Autonomous Actors: The necessary actors are separate individuals, groups, or representatives of institutions which, if some or all concur, can act, but no one of which by itself has the ability to decide and force compliance on the others; moreover, no overarching authoritative body exists in which all these actors are members.

The author shows that each of the three decision units can be found in three different forms depending on the nature of certain contingencies (see table 2.2). These contingencies represent the quality of each unit which are: sensitivity to information; use of technology; and adoption of decision making rules. Among the three qualities, the later one is considered more as the quality of a decision procedure by other authors which are discussed in previous sections. Hence, the remaining two are considered as the quality of a decision unit.

A focus on a decision maker may involve firstly, a review of that person’s decision-making history, his preparation for decision making, his sensitivity about the context of decision problem etc. (Hermann, 2001; Keren and Bruin, 2003). He should possess a complete picture of the situation. Before reaching the decision, he should attempt to understand the nature of problem, its causes (Zakay, 1984) as well as sources because in different contexts it can mean different things to people. For example, in boundary conflict problem; conflict can refer to (Doucet, 1996):

o a debate or contest; a disagreement, argument, dispute, quarrel; o a struggle, battle or confrontation, and; o a state of unrest, turmoil or chaos.

Secondly, in order to qualify decision unit, Zakay (1984) identified another criterion to measure the quality of a decision maker. Whether the decision maker uses the relevant professional knowledge


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(including technology) is important when the decision maker is unable to decide. And finally, the attitude and strategy of conflicting parties in decision unit define not only their problem-solving behaviour, but also the prospects of reaching an acceptable solution (Fisher et al., 1991; Sten, 2002). Important variables of attitude are how parties attempt to satisfy their own (assertiveness) versus the other party's concerns (cooperativeness). Successful collaboration requires that both parties are assertive concerning their own needs, but are simultaneously willing to take the needs of the other party equally into consideration. Fisher et al. (Fisher et al., 1991) identified three different strategies of negotiation process namely soft, hard and principled. Table 2.3 lists the characteristics of each approach where the authors urged that the principled approach is the best way to deal with any negotiation.

Table 2.2: Structure and contingencies of decision unit determines its quality Decision Unit Key Contingency

Sensitivity to contextual Information i) Relatively Insensitive (Goals and Means well defined) ii) Moderately Sensitive (Goals well defined, Means flexible)

Predominant Leader

iii) Highly sensitive (Goals and Means Flexible) Techniques used to manage conflict in Group i) Members act to minimize conflict (Members loyal to group) ii) Members acknowledge conflict is unavoidable; group must deal with it. (Members’ loyalty outside group; unanimity decision rules)

Single Group

iii) Members recognize conflict may have no resolution (Members’ loyalty outside group; majority decision rule) Nature of rules/norms guiding interaction i) No established rules for decision making ii) Established norms favour majority rules

Coalition of Autonomous Actors

iii) Established norms favour unanimity rule

Table 2.3: Negotiation approaches and its attributes Problem Positional Bargaining: Which Game Should Play?

Solution Change the Game- Negotiate on the Merits

Soft Hard Principled -Participants are friends. -The goal is agreement.

-Participants are adversaries. -The goal is victory.

-Participants are problem-solvers. -The goal is a wise outcome reached efficiently and amicably.

-Make concessions to cultivate the relationship.

-Demand concessions as a condition of the relationship.

Separate the people from the problem

-Soft on the people and the problem. -Hard on the problem and the people.

-Soft on the people, hard on the problem.

-Trust others. -Distrust others. -Proceed independent of trust. Change position easily. Dig in to position. Focus on interests, not positions. Make offers. Make threats. -Explore interests. Disclose bottom line. Mislead bottom line. -Avoid having a bottom line. -Accept one-sided losses to reach agreement.

-Demand one-sided gains as the price of agreement.

Invent options for mutual gain.

-Search for the single answer: the one that other party will accept.

-Search for the single answer: the accepted one for himself.

-Develop multiple options to choose from; decide later.

-Insist on agreement. -Insist on your position. Insist on using objective criteria. -Try to avoid a contest of will. -Try to win a contest of will. -Try to search a result based on

standards independent of will. -Yield to pressure. -Apply pressure. -Reason and open to reason; yield

to principle, not pressure.


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2.2.3. Qualifying Decision Method

A well adopted decision method in resolving boundary conflict is Participatory 3 Dimensional Modelling. Other formal methods which are considered useful in resolving boundary conflict in this research are Single Criterion Evaluation method like Cost-Benefit Analysis and Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) method depending on the context of problem.

2.2.3.1. Participatory 3-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM)

Participatory 3-Dimensional Modelling (P3DM) has been conceived as a method for bringing GIS potentials closer to rural communities and for bridging the gap existing between geographic information technologies and capacities found among marginalized, isolated, and frequently natural resource-dependent communities (Rambaldi and Callosa-Tarr, 2002). P3DM integrates people’s knowledge and spatial information to produce stand-alone scale relief models (figure 2-3) that have proved to be user friendly and relatively accurate data storage and analysis devices and at the same time excellent communication media. At grassroots level, P3DM can help in dealing with conflicts bound to the territory through visualization of the landscape, and the provision of vantage points shared by the conflicting parties. In addition, a 3-D model provides contenders with equitable access to information, adding transparency and reducing the space for subjective interpretations. The use of 3-D models for conflict resolution has been widespread in Northern Thailand and is currently ongoing in the Philippines (Rambaldi et al., 2002).

Figure 2-3: Contenders locating the Municipal Boundary Monument (MBM) in a P3DM

Through the use of 3-D model embracing the entire area of conflict, it became apparent that diverse ethno-linguistic groups were using different names for natural landmarks, like creeks and peaks. Resident of different locations would construe “the boundary running along the highest mountain” depending on their own viewpoint. Different denominations and interpretations of natural features were ineluctably sources of disagreement. In such a context, there is no doubt that the third dimension and the holistic view offered by the 3-D model have been key factors in facilitating the consolidation of the negotiation process.

2.2.3.2. Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA)

Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) is a decision aiding method that is extremely popular among the economists. The idea of CBA is that a decision should only be implemented if its “benefits” outweigh its “costs”. Bouyssou et al. (Bouyssou et al., 2000) identified the following limitations of CBA as a decision support method:


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• Supporting decision/evaluation process involves many more activities than just evaluation. The determination of various stakeholders, the modelling of their objectives form a crucial part of any decision support study.

• CBA is a mono-criterion approach.

• The possibility of including individual “weights” in the computation of the Net Present Social Value (NPSV) exists; but it is hardly ever used in practice.

Because of these limitations, the authors urged that CBA is far from exhausting the activity of supporting decision processes in spite of its many qualities. But CBA can contribute to narrowing the margin for pure judgement in the decision making (Groenendijk and Dopheide, 2003). The authors claimed that the most straight forward justification for the application of CBA is that knowledge about costs and benefits is useful in making decisions. When conflict is all about efficient use of resources, CBA could play a role in decision making.

2.2.3.3. Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE)

The combination of Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) methods and spatial analysis (GIS) is referred to as spatial multiple criteria evaluation (SMCE) (Zarkesh, 2005). GIS on its own offer limited application potential for use in ill-structured complex decision problems where multiple and conflicting criteria and objectives are of great concern. The use of GIS alone in participatory decision making would provide a real challenge of how to incorporate local conflicts into the decision process especially those arising from more qualitative perceptions of space of different stakeholders. On the other hand, MCE alone provides very strong application potential for ill-structured complex decision problems with limited spatial component. The following characteristics of SMCE make it a good candidate as a decision method in conflict resolution decision.

• The multi-criteria element is especially important for arriving at mutually beneficial solutions. It allows each side to give on various criteria that are not so important to it, but are important to the other side, and vice versa. That cannot be done so easily, if at all, in traditional single-dimension dispute resolution (Nagel and Mills, 1990).

• Using MCE alone would present a real challenge for participants to visualize the spatial dimensions of the decision problem. These limitations can be overcome by the integration of GIS and MCE into SMCE (Chilufya, 2003). A map says more than thousands word. When interactively manipulating MCE settings, analysts can observe the resulting changes in the decision outcome and compare them to their knowledge of the study area in a map.

Conventional Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) techniques have been largely non-spatial. They use average or total impacts that are deemed appropriate for the entire area under consideration (Tkach and Simonovic, 1997 referred in (Zarkesh, 2005)). The most significant difference between SMCE and conventional MCE is the explicit presence of a spatial component. SMCE therefore requires data on the geographical locations of alternatives and/or geographical data on criterion values. To obtain information for the decision-making process, the data are processed using Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) as well as GIS techniques. Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation is a process that combines and transforms geographical data (the input) into a decision (the output). This process consists of procedures that involve the utilization of geographical data, the decision maker’s preferences, and the manipulation of the data and preferences according to specified decision rules. In


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this process, multidimensional geographical data and information can be aggregated into one dimensional value for the alternatives.

An SMCE problem can be visualized as an evaluation table of maps or as a map of evaluation tables, as shown in Figure 2-4 (Sharifi et al., 2004). If the objective of the evaluation is a ranking of the alternatives, the evaluation table of maps has to be transformed into one final ranking of alternatives. Actually, the function has to aggregate not only the effects but also the spatial component. To define such a function is rather complicated.

Figure 2-4: Two interpretations of a two-dimensional decision problem (1: table of maps, 2: map of

tables).

Figure 2-5: Two paths of spatial multi criteria evaluation

Therefore, the function is simplified by dividing it into two operations: (i) aggregation of the spatial component, and (ii) aggregation of the criteria. These two operations can be carried out in different orders, which are visualized in Figure 2-5 as Path 1 and Path 2. The distinguishing feature of these two paths is the order in which aggregation takes place. In the first path, the first step is the aggregation across spatial units (spatial analysis is the principal tool); the second step is the aggregation across criteria (multi criteria analysis playing the main role). In the second path, these steps are taken in reverse order. In the first case, the effect of one alternative for one criterion is a map. This case can be used when evaluating the spatial evaluation problem using the so-called ‘Path 1’. In the second case, every location has its own zero-dimensional problem and can best be used when evaluating the spatial problem using the so-called ‘Path 2’ (Figure 2-5).


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2.2.3.4. Quality of a Decision Method

All formal decision methods are a set of explicit and well-defined rules to collect, assess and process information in order to be able to make recommendations in decision process (Bouyssou et al., 2000). The authors claimed that formal methods are useful in many circumstances because of the following reasons:

• Formal methods provide explicit and, to a large extent, unambiguous representations of a given problem; they offer a common language for communicating about the problem. They are therefore particularly well suited for facilitating communication among the actors of a decision process.

• Formal methods require that the decision maker makes a substantial effort to structure his perception or representation of the problem. This effort can only be beneficial as it forces the decision maker to think harder and deeper about his problem.

• Once formal method has been established, hundreds of what-if questions can be answered in a flash. This can be of great help for devising acceptable recommendation.

Since a boundary is shared by its nature, a boundary demarcation decision requires the consideration of different stakes meaning the existence of conflicting values and interests which have to be reconciled. A variety of methods have been developed to support and improve group decision making. A number of authors proposed various criteria to select a decision method depending on various methodological and practical considerations (Zakay, 1984; Graaff, 1996; Timmermans and Vlek, 1996; Hoffberg and Korver, 2003; Sharifi, 2005; Rinner, 2006). These considerations can be grouped as follows which are discussed in the following paragraphs:

o Formal/Technical considerations/decision analytic and processing capability;

o Organizational considerations/practical criteria/resource criteria; and

o Decision maker considerations/attitudinal criteria.

Firstly, technical considerations refer to: the methodological soundness of the decision method whether the method is successfully applied in different problem settings; representation and processing of the user’s goals, preferences and expectations. The later elements also represent the three elements of a subrational choice identified by Brown (2005). These elements are:

1) “What do I want?” - goals 2) “What can I do?” – options 3) What might happen? - Outcome

Secondly, resource criteria/organizational considerations refer to method’s flexibility with regard to variations in decision problems and user’s competence and efficient in terms of time, money and personnel needed. Application of a decision method is feasible when it can be run within the budget; time and expertise constraint of an organization.

And thirdly, attitudinal criteria which Rinner (Rinner, 2006) referred as “Usability Criteria” are user satisfaction criteria such as satisfaction with and acceptance of the method, and satisfaction with and confidence in the method outcome (result). Although attitudinal criteria do not directly reflect a sound decision method, these are important because they shape the decision makers mind with satisfaction and reliability. Satisfaction with and confidence in the resulting decision are generally considered to reflect the decision maker’s positive evaluation of the method (Timmermans and Vlek, 1996). The


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authors identified an additional criterion which is applicable only in group decision making is the ‘Interaction Criteria”. The method by which decision is reached must be fair, open, and collaborative as opposed to manipulative.

2.3. Qualifying Decision Outcome

When the outcome of a decision is known, people are even less likely to follow the guidelines provided by the process based literature. Instead, when judging decision quality, they tend to focus on the outcome than the process (Jones et al., 1997). For instance, after following a well established process if a patient dies at the end of a day, the consequence of the decision will be focused than the process. Enhanced Adaptive Structure Theory (EAST2) (Nyerges, 2001) (see figure 1-1) identifies two types of consequences in a decision. The first one is task outcome meaning the decision outcome itself; whether the decision led to the desired outcome. And the second one is social outcome meaning the status of relationship among the members of decision unit after a decision. The status of relationship may change due to the interaction among the members of a decision unit in the process.

Herman (2001) established six possible outcomes in a decision making process, that is, six distinctly different things can happen in the course of a decision unit’s deliberations (table 2.4). In each case the outcome of the process indicates the endpoint of the decision in terms of the preferences of those involved. These six include:

Table 2.4: Structure and quality of decision unit determines the quality of decision outcome Decision Unit Key Contingency Decision Outcome

Sensitivity to contextual Information i) Relatively Insensitive (Goals and Means well defined)

One party’s position prevail

ii) Moderately Sensitive (Goals well defined, Means flexible)

Concurrence or lopsided compromise depending on feasibility of preferred option

Predominant Leader

iii) Highly sensitive (Goals and Means Flexible)

Mutual compromise

Techniques used to manage conflict in Group i) Members act to minimize conflict (Members loyal to group)

Concurrence

ii) Members acknowledge conflict is unavoidable; group must deal with it. (Members’ loyalty outside group; unanimity decision rules)

Mutual compromise or deadlock

Single Group

iii) Members recognize conflict may have no resolution (Members’ loyalty outside group; majority decision rule)

One party’s position prevail

Nature of rules/norms guiding interaction i) No established rules for decision making Fragmented symbolic action ii) Established norms favour majority rules One party’s position prevails

Coalition

iii) Established norms favour unanimity rule Deadlock or mutual compromise

1) One party’s position prevails: Some of those in the decision process have their preferences accepted as the choice.

2) Concurrence: There is a shared sense of direction that either results from the decision process or is evident in the preferences of those involved in the bargaining of the process. The decision represented the shared preferences of everyone.


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3) Mutual compromise/consensus: A mutual compromise/consensus indicates that all parties in the decision unit have yielded some of their position in order, in turn, not to lose out completely in the choice process. Here, everyone gets some of what they want- the partial preferences of everyone are represented in the decision.

4) Lopsided compromise: A lopsided compromise, in contrast, suggests that one party’s preferences have prevailed but they have yielded a little to allow the others in the decision process to save face.

5) Deadlock: With deadlock, those in the decision unit cannot agree and, in effect, at this moment in time “agree to disagree”. No ones preferences are represented in the decision because the unit is unable to reach a decision.

6) Fragmented symbolic action: Fragmented symbolic action is a deadlock in which the disagreement explodes outside the decision unit with each participant in the decision unit trying to take action on their own and/or complaining about others’ behaviour.

Thus the outcome a decision can be qualified in three different ways. Firstly, whether a decision outcome solved the real world problem or not; secondly, whether it changes the relationship among the members of a decision unit and finally, whether all interests at stake were considered and valued in conflict resolution.

2.4. Conclusion

In order to resolve a boundary conflict parties need to make a decision of where the boundary should be. This decision does not always produce a good result either because the way the decision being made was not good or its undesirable outcome. That is why there is a need to evaluate the quality of a decision. The evaluation can be done in two ways: evaluating its decision making process or evaluating its outcome. Whether decision will be judged by outcome or process depends on the perspective of the person judging (Keren and Bruin, 2003). Yet, the majority of researchers emphasize that the process, than the outcome, should be the object of evaluation. Harshey and Baron (Hershey and Baron, 1992) pointed out that if a good decision process is more likely to lead to a good outcome, it follows logically that good outcomes are more likely to stem from good decision process. Based on these notions and the literature that dealt with measuring decision’s goodness in the above sections, a framework is developed (figure 2-6) to measure the decision quality. This framework will be useful to predict the quality of a decision making process beforehand as well as to evaluate the quality of a decision if the decision is already made.


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Figure 2-6: Framework for evaluation of decision quality

.


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3. Methodology

Primary focus of this research is to evaluate decision quality around boundary conflict resolution. This research is a combination of exploratory, descriptive and explanatory research and as such it is designed to answer ‘who’, ‘what’ ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions. In order to answer the questions decision making cases in resolving boundary conflicts needs to be selected. Hence, it is a case study research and this chapter starts with a methodology for the selection of case study areas. One resolved and one unresolved cases have been selected to answer the research question.

What questions has explored the selected cases under investigation like what are the weaknesses in decisions made. Who questions analyzed archival records as well as present situation to find out the structure and the quality of the decision unit involvement in decision processes. Whereas how questions explained the way decisions were made and why question answers the appropriateness of using Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) as a preferred decision method.

This chapter describes the data collection and data analysis process to answer the above questions. It describes the data need, data acquisition methods, collected data and its usefulness for this research. The data were acquired through literature review; secondary sources; questionnaire survey; and interview with relevant personnel. The chapter ends with the procedure as used in the SMCE for generating spatial alternatives and formulation of spatial evaluation criteria. These alternatives and criteria are required to demonstrate the application of SMCE in a decision making process to resolve the boundary conflict of the unresolved case.

3.1. Selection of Study Area

Being the candidate of a case study research, what would be the unit of analysis was the concern of this research. For this, I did not have much flexibility to choose as this research is done following a request from the Regional Development Council (RDC) of Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) in the Philippines. That is why CAR is chosen as the preliminary study area in this research (see figure 3-1). If a study needs to be done, it is here mainly because of two reasons. Firstly, the region is attributed with large number of boundary conflicts (76 conflicts among 76 municipalities in the region: Appendix-1). A researcher will find all types of boundary conflict (see section 2.1) with different magnitude of complexity (see section 4.1). And secondly, people involved in those conflicts are very much willing to resolve. A Task Force has been formed by the RDC to resolve the conflict over the region. When I was in the field, I found that the Task Force is interested to resolve inter municipal boundary conflicts. That is why municipality is chosen as the unit of analysis.

There are too many conflicts to study in one month over the region. I had to limit my study area only in one province. The offices of most of the organizations forming the Task Force are located in the city of Baguio (see figure 3-2). Baguio is located within the province of Benguet. Thus Benguet is chosen as the next level of study area in order to ease communication with the Task Force.


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Figure 3-1: Map of the study area (Not to Scale)

Figure 3-2: Map of conflicting cases (Source: LMS, 2006)

The Task Force is interested to handle the problem case by case. It chooses the conflict between the municipality of La Trinidad and municipality of Tublay as the first case to be resolved. That is why I selected this case as my current conflicting case for the ex-ante evaluation of decision quality in this research. The other reasons of choosing this case are following:


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o There is no single island of conflict among the municipalities in the province of Benguet (see figure 3-3); meaning that in order to address the conflict of one municipality, it requires addressing the conflicts of all municipalities. But, this research did not allow that much time to investigate the conflict among all municipalities in the field.

o The above mentioned municipalities are nearby of the city of Baguio (figure 3-2). Consideration is given on the distance because I had to travel frequently to those municipalities to collect data and to interview municipal officials.

o The office of provincial council of the province of Benguet is also located in La Trinidad.

o It was easier to collect both spatial and non-spatial data for the mentioned conflict as most of the data were readily available.

o Both municipalities were willing to resolve the boundary conflict.

o The official of both municipalities pose good relationship with the officials of the Task Force.

Figure 3-3: Conflicting relation of the municipalities within Benguet province

It is also found that the conflict between the above chosen municipalities has a long history and several attempts were made to resolve but the problem is still persisting. That is why this case is also chosen to understand why decision making attempts failed. I selected a resolved case to fulfil my research objective of describing and comparing decision quality between resolved and unresolved cases. A boundary conflict between the municipality of Kapangan and the municipality of Tublay has been resolved amicably in 1996. I selected this case because it was resolved in the provincial council and provincial council documented the case properly; and the documents were available.

A comparative evaluation of the decision quality between the cases will help to understand why in one case the decision was successful but in the other not. This evaluation is done in chapter 5.


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3.2. Data Collection

A checklist was prepared for the formulation of required data to answer the research questions (table 3.1). Two methods of data collection have been followed from the field (figure 3-4): data collection through primary sources and data collection through secondary sources.

Figure 3-4: Methods of data collection

Table 3.1: Required and collected data to answer research questions Research questions Data requirement Data obtained Source 1.1 What procedure was followed to make

decisions? Decision procedure Conflict resolution

working paper, minutes, Interview

Provincial Council1, Municipalities2, Personnel of relevant organizations

1.2 Who were involved in decision making and their role?

Decision unit structure and role

Conflict resolution working paper

Provincial Council, Municipalities

1.3 What methods have been used to make the decisions?

Decision method Conflict resolution working paper


1.4 How the conflicts among the members of decision unit resolved?

Conflict resolution outcome

Conflict resolution working paper, Literature

Provincial Council, Municipalities, Book, Journal

1.5 What was the rationality of the decisions?

Rationality of decisions Conflict resolution working paper, Literature

Provincial Council, Municipalities, Book, Journal

1.6 How the knowledge of earlier made decisions reflected in the next decision?

Application of decision maker’s experience

Conflict resolution working paper, minutes, Interview

Provincial Council, Municipalities, Key personnel

2.1 What are the weaknesses in decisions made?

Quality of decision variables

Conflict resolution working paper


2.2 What are the reasons behind the weaknesses?

Identified weaknesses Interview, Conflict resolution working paper

Personnel of relevant organizations, Provincial Council, Municipalities

3.1 In which circumstances SMCE fits as a method?

Strength and Weakness of SMCE, Decision Problem

Literature, Conflict resolution working paper, Interview,

Book, Journal, Thesis, Provincial Council, Municipalities

3.2 Whether SMCE is capable to address the identified weaknesses?

Attitude of decision unit, Understanding of SMCE functionality, Reliability upon SMCE, Nature of Issues, Nature of conflict

Interview, Questionnaire Answer, Spatial and Attribute Data

Personnel of relevant organizations, NEDA, LMS, Municipalities, NSO, LMB, Provincial Council

3.3 What are the institutional settings availing to adopt the method?

Institutional Strength Interview Personnel of relevant organizations

1 Provincial council provided documents for the resolved case 2 Conflicting municipalities provided documents, maps, attribute data for the unresolved case


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Primary sources The primary sources include interview and questionnaire survey. For the interview: firstly, organizations that are involved with either the boundary demarcation or the conflict resolution process are identified; and secondly, personnel who have the potentiality to provide necessary information are selected and approached for interview. Throughout the interviews, mostly qualitative information was collected which includes opinion, perceptions, attitude etc. The interviews were comprised of semi-structured open-ended (Groenendijk and Dopheide, 2003) questions which are appended in appendix-2. The interview was in-depth in nature which involved face-to-face and repeated interaction (Kumer, 2005). Enough time was allocated for each interviewee so that s/he felt free to express her/his views. The interview was recorded with permission and processed later on. Appendix 3 lists the persons interviewed and the type of information gathered.

Chairman, Boundary Dispute Committee, Provincial Council, Benguet

Secretary, Boundary Dispute Committee, Provincial Council, Benguet

Vice Mayor and Councillor, La Trinidad Municipality

Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator, Tublay Municipality

Barangay Captain, Shilan Barangay, La Trinidad Municipality

Chief, Regional Survey Division, Land Management Services (LMS)

Figure 3-5: Pictures taken during interview

Figure 3-6: Presentation on SMCE before questionnaire survey

For the questionnaire survey, collective administering method has been followed as it is one of the best ways of administering a questionnaire (Kumer, 2005). The questionnaire was disseminated to the participants in a General Orientation on Boundary Conflict Resolution on November 7, 2006. A group


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of elected officials representing different LGUs in CAR were participated on the orientation. An explanation of different questions of that questionnaire is presented by one of the research supervisors before answering the questions. 32 respondents returned the questionnaire with answer. The questionnaire was comprised of 15 questions. Out of 15 questions, 5 questions were open-ended and the remaining was multiple choices. A sample question is appended in appendix-4.

Secondary Sources The secondary source includes mainly the organizations that were identified for the interview. It also included published books, journal articles, newspapers, seminar proceedings etc. The organizations provided spatial data; non-spatial data as well as documents. Table 3.2 shows the collected spatial data and non-spatial data with sources and its usefulness in this research. Table 3.3 shows the documents that were collected during fieldwork and its usefulness.

Table 3.2: Checklist of collected spatial and attribute Data Name Type/Source Usefulness for the thesis Digital Cadastre survey map of Benguet province indicating conflicting areas

Spatial/ LMS 2006

-Display of province -Display of municipalities -Display of disputed area -Calculation of disputed area

Political Boundary Areas and disputed areas in Benguet Province

Attribute/ LMS 2006

-Cross check with map of disputed area -Official document of Area to calculate IRA

Quick bird image of La Trinidad Municipality with 0.7m resolution

Spatial/ NEDA 2003

-Identification of property -Identification of businesses

Land Cover 2003 Spatial/ NEDA -Identification of agricultural area -Land use classification in SMCE

Road Network of Benguet Spatial/ NEDA 2003

-Measuring accessibility for urban development potential of the conflicting area

Population census of La Trinidad and Tublay municipality

Attribute data/NSO 2005

-IRA is one of the major conflicting issues -Population is one of the factor to calculate IRA

Masterlist of Business Permits- La Trinidad and Tublay municipality

Attribute/ Municipalities 2006

-preparation of spatial factors (Conflicting interest)

Property Tax- La Trinidad and Tublay municipality

Attribute/ Municipalities 2006

-preparation of spatial factors (Conflicting interest)


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Table 3.3: Checklist of Collected Documents Name Type/Source Usefulness for the thesis Updated Benguet Socio-Economic Profile, 2003

Book -Brief history of the creation of Benguet province -Municipal area and population -Disputed area -Land use classification

Local Government Code of the Philippines 1991

Book -Relevant laws regarding boundary dispute -Boundary dispute resolution process -Creation and alteration of municipal boundary -Method of tax calculation

Cordillera Staple, 2005 News Paper -Description of the municipalities in Benguet History of La Trinidad Municipality Book -History of the creation of La Trinidad

Municipality Boundary Dispute Resolution between Kapangan and Tublay municipality (1994-96)

Conflict resolution working paper (PC)

Helpful for Ex-post evaluation -Procedure followed in dispute resolution -Involvement of decision unit and its role -Decision method used -Evaluation of rationality -Conflict and its resolution -Time line to solve the problem

Municipal resolution regarding boundary disputes between Tublay and La Trinidad Municipality (1949-2003)

Resolution Helpful for Ex-ante evaluation -Initiatives made so far, procedure, unit, method -Why stops several times -Issues/Interest

Narrative description of boundary (Republic orders in different years)

Book -Republic act of the creation of boundary -One of the root cause of boundary conflict

IRA for LGUs by DBM Document -Amount of Land and population used to calculate IRA by the DBM -measure the trade-off between population and land area to calculate IRA -Checking the reliability of information dissemination between different organizations

Political Boundary Survey- LMS (2006)

Document -How political boundary is established -When dispute occurs -What is the status of disputed area

Update of Disputed area-NSO (2006)

Document -Census recording in disputed area -Cross check of information gap

General Orientation on Boundary Conflict Resolution (2006)

Seminar Proceedings

-History of RDC involvement -Status of boundary conflict in CAR -Boundary conflict resolution -Computation of land area -Example of SMCE to solve boundary conflict -Issues and concerns

3.3. Data Analysis

Collected primary and secondary data were analysed in the light of knowledge gained from the literature. Spatial data were analysed using GIS software whereas the answers of the questionnaire are analyzed using a statistical software.

3.3.1. Literature Review

The purpose of literature review is to acquaint myself with the existing knowledge in my area of interest. Extensive literature has been searched to develop a framework (figure 2-6) for the evaluation of decision quality. The literature provides the theoretical background of the developed framework. The framework is used to analyze the collected data to answer the research questions. Answer of some


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of the research questions came directly from the literature. The literature review also helps to integrate my findings with the existing knowledge.

3.3.2. Statistical Analysis

The purpose of statistical analysis was to understand the reaction of the respondent towards a changing decision process where SMCE was introduced as a decision method. From individual responses of the questionnaire survey, it is difficult to understand the patterns in the data. Thus it is important to summarize the data. Some simple statistical measures such as percentage, means etc. can reduce the volume of data, making it easier to understand. For the statistical analysis, several steps were followed in this research. Firstly, the answer of the questionnaire was checked for consistency and completeness. Secondly, the consistent and complete data was coded using either ordinal or nominal scale. Open ended questions were categorized first, a process called content analysis (Kumer, 2005), and coded later on. Coded data were stored in a database of SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software. The software was also used to analyze the collected questionnaire data. Basic analytical tools like descriptive statistics were used for this research. The analysis is appended in appendix-5.

3.3.3. Spatial Analysis

Spatial analysis is very important element of this research for two reasons. Firstly, this research is dealing with spatial conflicts which can best be represented spatially. Secondly, one of the objectives of this research is to examine the applicability of SMCE. SMCE evaluated spatial alternatives using spatial evaluation criteria. Spatial analysis is the only way to do so. Geographical Information System (GIS) software packages like ArcGIS 9.1, ILWIS 3.3 were used for these purposes. Both software help displaying: study area, conflicting areas, and conflicting municipalities. The software also used to capture the conflicting interests of the contenders and also to generate alternative options to meet the objectives of the contenders. A special feature of ILWIS 3.3 named Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) is used for the evaluation of different alternatives in order to facilitate decision making. ArcGIS ModelBuilder functionality is used to develop a model to facilitate Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation of the alternatives. The following sections describe how alternative boundaries were generated and spatial criteria representing the conflicting interests are capture for the SMCE demonstration in chapter six.

3.3.3.1. Generation of Spatial Alternatives

A decision unit wants to resolve the unresolved case. For this reason, the unit wants to draw a satisfycing boundary line in the conflicting area. When a decision process faces deadlock to reach an agreement, consideration of additional alternatives help the contenders to come up with consensus. Theoretically, it is possible to draw infinite number of boundary lines and evaluate those lines to come up with an optimal solution (e.g. optimization method). But the optimization technique is not followed in this research for two reasons. Firstly, considering the differences between ‘Rationality’ and ‘Bounded Rationality’ this research is following the concept of bounded rationality. Secondly, an optimal boundary may loose some quality (e.g. visibility, stability etc.) in comparison with the practiced (see table 2.1) boundary. That is why; this research follows the literature for the generation of alternative boundary options. Based on the literature and considering the type of boundary helped in resolving the conflict in the resolved case, following three forms of alternative boundaries are generated.


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Natural Boundary Alternative The conflicting area consists of mountainous topography. It has high mountain tops and creek in between the mountain tops. A boundary line is drawn following the creek because it is visible and stable in nature. Since the creek is not clearly visible in the collected satellite image because of forest over it, a Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) has been generated from the contour map of La Trinidad municipality. Then the conflicting area has been masked and a boundary line is digitized following the creek from TIN. The procedure followed to generate this alternative is shown in figure 3-7 and figure 3-8 shows the Natural Boundary Alternative.

Figure 3-7: Flow diagram for the generation of Natural Boundary alternative

Figure 3-8: Map showing the Natural boundary in the conflicting area


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Tax Line Boundary Alternative In the resolved cased, the conflict has been solved by Tax Line Boundary. A tax line boundary is a line drawn based on who pays tax in which municipality. Residential and business tax payer information (attribute) is collected from conflicting municipalities. All buildings of the conflicting area are digitized from a Quickbird image (year 2003). Barangay captain of Shilan barangay identified the buildings as per tax attribute. The building layer is displayed with tax payer information and a boundary line is digitized following the road network. The followed procedure to generate this alternative is shown in figure 3-9 and figure 3-10 shows the Tax Line Boundary Alternative.

Figure 3-9: Flow diagram for the generation of Tax Line Boundary alternative

Figure 3-10: Map showing the Tax Line boundary in the conflicting area


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Highway Boundary Alternative A highway/mass transit is a very common type of boundary. There is a highway which bisects the conflicting area in this case. This highway could serve as an alternative option. A highway layer is digitized inside the conflicting area from the Quickbird image. Figure 3-11 shows the procedure to draw the highway boundary and figure 3-12 shows the highway boundary in the conflicting area.

Figure 3-11: Flow diagram for the generation of Highway Boundary alternative

Figure 3-12: Map showing the Highway boundary in the conflicting area


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Both the Highway Boundary and the Tax Line Boundary can be designed in two ways maintaining the contiguity with the conflicting municipalities (see figure 3-16 and 3-18). Subsequently, the Highway Boundary and Tax Line Boundary are named as Highway Boundary A, Highway Boundary B and Tax Line Boundary A, Tax Line Boundary B respectively. Thus, five alternative boundaries are considered for the SMCE evaluation in chapter six. The alternative boundaries are shown from figure 3-14 to figure 3-18

Figure 3-13: The conflicting municipalities with the conflicting area

Figure 3-14: The natural boundary


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Figure 3-15: Tax Line A alternative boundary Figure 3-16: Highway A alternative boundary

Figure 3-17: Tax Line B alternative boundary Figure 3-18: Highway B alternative boundary


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3.3.3.2. Spatial Evaluation Criteria

A set of criteria (see figure 3-19) is used to evaluate the alternatives by measuring the effects or impacts of the alternatives. A criterion gives an indication of how well an alternative reaches the objective. A criterion is called spatial if it needs information about locations to measure the effects of an alternative. In this research the following spatial criteria are used to evaluate the alternatives. These criteria represent the spatial conflicting interests of the contenders. Conflicting interests of both parties were identified during interview.

o Residential Property Tax: The more valuable the residential property, the higher the municipal tax income.

o Commercial Property Tax: The more valuable the commercial property, the higher the municipal tax income.

o Agricultural Property Tax: The more valuable the agricultural property, the higher the municipal tax income.

o IRA from Land: Having more municipal land area means receiving more money from the national government in a form of Internal Revenue Allotment. Generally, a municipality receives 4.03 pesos per 100 square meters as IRA.

o IRA from Population: Having more municipal population means receiving more money from the national government in a form of Internal Revenue Allotment. Generally, a municipality receives 492 pesos per person as IRA.

o Land Use Suitability for Urban Development: The land use zoning regulates the urban developable land area.

o Proximity to road for Urban Development: The area close to road network considers more potential for urban development.

o Number of persons requiring municipal services: The higher the number of population, the more services is required to deliver for a municipality.

o Land Area: A municipality requires 10000 hectares of land to become a component city. A component city enjoys more taxing power than a municipality.

Methods for the Calculation of Spatial Criteria

Property Tax = ((Fair Market Value) × (Assessment percentage) × (2 percent) × 100∗)/ Property Area

Property taxes were calculated using the above formula provided in the Local Government Code. Fair market value data is collected from the municipalities. Assessment percentages for commercial, residential and agriculture are 80%, 60% and 50% respectively according to the said code. The generated tax map (see figure 3-10) is used for the calculation of residential and commercial property taxes. Existing land cover map is used for the calculation of agricultural tax.

∗ All calculation is done for 100 sqaure meter of land because 10 meter pixel size is used for raster operation.


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IRA from land = (Total IRA for land in previous year / Total area) × 100 = 4.63 pesos per 100 square meter Disbursed IRA value for land is collected from LMB which shows that a municipality earns an average of 4.03 pesos/100 square meter of land.

IRA from population = ((Average household size) × 492 × 100)/ building area

Population data is collected from NSO. The population data was not available for household level rather it was summarized into barangay level. Since the conflicting area is located in two barangays (Barangay of Shilan in La Trinidad municipality and barangay of Caponga in Tublay municipality) of different municipalities, average household size is calculated using the following formula.

Average household size = (Total population of Shilan + Total population of Caponga) / (Total number of household in Shilan + Total number of household in Caponga)

Average household data is inserted into the residential buildings of the conflicting area. IRA per person is calculated using previously disbursed IRA for population to LGUs which is approximately 492 pesos per person.

Land use zoning map is collected and used for potential urban development suitable area.

Zoning map classified the conflicting area into five zones: Agricultural, Built-up, Built-up Brushland, Grassland and Pine Forest. Built-up and Built-up Brushland are considered for higher potential for urban development. The agricultural and grassland area are considered for lower potential and pine forest is not considered for urban development potential area.

Proximity to road = Euclidean distance of road layer

Road network inside the conflicting area is digitized and Euclidean Distance (ArcGIS) function is used to generate distance map. This distance map is used for the proximity to road for urban development potential criteria.

No of people required municipal services = (Average household size/ building area) × 100

Calculated average household size data is used to count the number of people requiring municipal services criterion.

Land Area = The conflicting area The conflicting area map is considered for this criterion. Total size of this conflicting area is 138.24 hector. The objective of a contending municipality is to get the whole conflicting area.


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Figure 3-19: Conflicting interests are represented as spatial criteria for the evaluation of alternatives


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4. Study Area

The research adopted a case study approach to study the decision quality. Decision making cases in resolving municipal boundary conflicts are selected from Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) in the Philippines. People involved in those conflicts are very much willing to resolve the conflicts. But their anxiety is finding a good method that can support the resolution process and can enhance the quality of decision making. This chapter starts with an overview of the extent of boundary conflicts in the region with its cause-effect relationship. It describes the characteristics of the study area. And finally, the chapter describes the legal process of boundary conflict resolution in the country. It concluded with a critical review of the legal process to explore the opportunity for further enhancement of its quality.

4.1. Overview of Boundary Conflicts at CAR

Article 15 of the Local Government Code (LGC) of the Philippines ‘91, defined boundary conflict as: “when a portion or the whole of the territorial area of a Local Government Unit (LGU) is claimed by two or more Local Government Units (LGUs)”. Thus the administrative structure of LGU shapes boundary conflict in the country. Philippines is structured politically/administratively in National, Regional, Provincial, Municipal or City down to the Barangay levels (Figure 4-1).

Nation

Province

Region

Barangays

Component City

Highly Urbanized City

Municipality

Barangays Barangays

Figure 4-1: Local government structure in the Philippines adopted from (Cabo, 1998)

A region is not a separate governmental level, but an organizational subdivision of the national governmental power (Gross, 2006). A province as highest Local Government level is represented by a governor. The municipalities as well as the component cities are in the next lower level and have to report to the governor. Exception is in highly urbanized city. It has to report direct to the Central Government (Regional Representation) and not to the province (Bautista, 1993). Municipalities, component cities and highly urbanized cities are further administratively divided into barangay. Component cities tend to be more urbanized and more developed in terms of physical infrastructures. A component city enjoys more taxing powers than municipalities (Cabo, 1998).

CAR is one the 17 regions in the Philippines. It was created by President Corazon Aquino in 1987 by virtue of Executive Order 220. CAR, a landlocked region, is located in northern central part of Luzon (figure 3-1). It lies between 120º 20' and 121º 45' east longitude; and between16º 05' and 18º 40' north latitude. The region is bounded by the Cagayan Valley on the east, and the Ilocos Region on the


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West. CAR has a mountainous topography and steep slopes (more than 30%) comprise 70% of the total land area. Elevation is up to 2000 meters above sea level.

Because of the administrative structure of the country this region has 4 levels of boundary conflict e.g. barangay, municipal, provincial and regional. One study (Rambaldi et al., 2002) showed that inter barangay boundary conflict has been resolved over the region. That is why this section summarizes the remaining three levels of boundary conflict.

Even though all conflicts are municipal conflict, but complexity increases when the boundary of a municipality shapes the boundary of a province or even further to a region.

4.1.1. Inter-Regional Conflict

CAR is composed of 6 provinces (Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Kalinga, and Mountain Province) and one highly urbanized city (city of Baguio), comprised with 76 municipalities and 1,172 barangays. There happens to be 76 conflicting areas in this region. Among the conflicting areas, 17 conflicting areas have conflict with other regions. These inter regional conflicts are between CAR vs. Region I and CAR vs. Region II. Out of 17 inter regional conflicting areas, 11 conflicts are between CAR and Region I and the remaining are between CAR and Region II. Within CAR, only province of Benguet has conflict with both regions (region I and II). All the 6 provinces in CAR have inter-regional conflict. 13 municipalities are involved in these 6 provinces with those 17 conflicts. Municipality of Calansan has 3 inter regional conflicting areas with three different municipalities within the province of Ilocos Norte in Region I. Municipality of Tuba in the province of Benguet and municipality of Asipulo in the province of Ifugao; each has 2 inter regional conflicting areas. The remaining 10 municipalities have only 1 inter regional conflicting area. Among the 76 municipalities in this region, 37 municipalities don’t have any conflict. Table 4.1 represents the LGUs in CAR having conflicts with other regions.

Table 4.1: Inter-regional boundary conflict in CAR (Adapted from LMS, 2006) Conflicting Municipalities and Province in CAR

Contending Regions

Contending municipalities

Contending Provinces

Area (ha)

Luba, Abra Region I San Emilio Ilocos Sur No data Pidigan, Abra Region I Ilocos Sur 69.5 Tubo, Abra Region I San Emilio Ilocos Sur No data Bakun, Benguet Region I Sugpon Ilocos Sur No data Kibungan, Benguet Region I Sugpon Ilocos Sur No data Tadian, Mt. province Region I Cervantes Ilocos Sur No data Calansan, Apayao Region I Vintar Ilocos Norte 948.5 Calansan, Apayao Region I Adams Ilocos Norte 844.7 Calansan, Apayao Region I Dumanlog Ilocos Norte 511.3 Tuba, Benguet Region I Sison Pangasinan No data Tuba, Benguet Region I Pugo La Union No data Flora, Apayao Region II Allacapan Cagayan No data Pinukpuk, Kalinga Region II Tuao Cagayan 2,636.3 Tabuk, Kalinga Region II Mallig Isabela No data Potia, Ifugao Region II Ramon Isabela No data Asipulo, Ifugao Region II Ambaguio Viscaya 7,632.3 Asipulo, Ifugao Region II Villaverde Viscaya 2,109.5


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The legal process (LGC ’91-see section 4.3) of boundary conflict resolution did not acknowledge inter regional boundary conflict as it is the concern of provincial council. The concerned provinces are responsible to resolve inter regional conflict. But currently the people involved with boundary conflict resolution in the region are intended to change the process. In this changing context, it would be a concern of having inter-regional boundary conflict which is discussed in chapter 6 (see section 6.3).

4.1.2. Inter-Provincial Conflict within CAR

This section describes inter and intra provincial conflicts within CAR. Among the 6 provinces in CAR, all provinces have inter-provincial conflict except the province of Apayao. But Apayao has maximum number (4) of inter-regional conflicts (see table 4.1). Mt. Province has maximum number (4) of inter provincial conflict with only 1 inter regional conflict followed by province of Kalinga with 2 inter provincial conflicting sites. The remaining provinces have only 1 inter provincial conflicting area. Table 4.2 shows the summary of intra-provincial, inter-provincial and inter-regional conflicting sites by province.

There are total 8 inter provincial conflicting areas in this region. According to LGC ’91, the respective provincial councils require joint hearing in order to resolve inter provincial conflicts.

Table 4.2: Intra and inter provincial conflict summary in CAR (Adapted from LMS, 2006) Provinces Abra Apayao Benguet Kalinga Ifugao Mt. Province Inter-regional Conflict No Conflict* Abra 9 - - - - 1 3 16Apayao - 4 - - - - 4 2Benguet - - 19 - - 1 4 - Kalinga - 1 - 10 - 1 2 6Ifugao - - - - 4 - 3 7Mt. Province - - - 1 3 5 1 6*’No conflict’ represents the number of municipalities located within the province don’t have any boundary conflict

4.1.3. Municipal Conflict

In CAR, out of 76 conflicting areas (appendix-1), as mentioned earlier 17 are inter-regional, 8 are inter-provincial. The remaining 51 conflicting areas are intra-provincial (table 4.2) meaning that those conflicting municipalities are located within the same province and do not require joint hearing. The respective provincial council alone is capable to handle those conflicts by law. The province of Benguet has maximum number (19) of inter municipal (intra provincial) boundary conflicts followed by province of Kalinga (10) and province of Abra (9).

In the province of Benguet, the municipality of Atok, Bokod, Kibungan and Tublay have maximum 4 conflicting areas each followed by Buguias and La Trinidad with 3 conflicting areas (table 4.3). Municipality of La Trinidad has 2 conflicting areas with the municipality of Tublay and 1 conflicting area with the municipality of Sablan. In this province, all municipalities have one or more conflicting area. Table 4.3 presents the conflicting sites with area in hectares among the municipalities within the province of Benguet.


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Table 4.3: Inter-municipal conflicts with area (hectares) in Benguet province (Adapted from LMS, 2006) Conflict Atok Bakun Bokod Buguias Itogon Kaba-

yan Kapa-ngan

Kibu-ngan

La Trinidad

Mank-ayan

Sablan Tuba Tublay

Atok 2,787 1,555 41 815 Bakun 1,078 Bokod 3,050;

7,1851542 809

Buguias 64 107; 311 Itogon No data Kabayan Kapangan 569 168Kibungan La Trinidad 534 138; 200Mankayan Sablan 119 Tuba Tublay

4.1.4. Status Summary of the Petitions Filed in the Provincial Council of Benguet

The main task of this research is to explore whether the decision making quality can be enhanced. In order to enhance the quality, it is important to know the performance of existing decision process. That is why this section has gone through the cases that were referred to the provincial council. The provincial council acted as a decision unit. The municipal council concerned initiated action by filing a petition, in the form of a resolution, having jurisdiction over the dispute. So far two cases have been resolved out of eight petitions filed in the provincial council of Benguet. The resolved cases are a conflict between the municipality of Kapangan and Tublay; and a conflict between the municipality of Atok and Kapangan. Other six cases are still pending in the provincial council. The reasons of this long awaiting conflict resolution are identified in chapter five (see section 5.4). Statuses of the unresolved six cases are summarized below.

Tuba vs. Itogon A petition is submitted by the municipality of Itogon in July 24, 1997 to the provincial council. This conflict started because of the control over natural resources (coal mine). The provincial Council found lack of evidence submitted by the parties and suggested to settle the conflict amicably by the parties themselves by October 4, 1999. If settlement fails by that time, the provincial council would hear the case again in November 8, 1999. Parties managed to agree by dividing the income of the coal mine by 50% until the mine field closes but the boundary conflict is still remaining.

Mankayan vs. Bakun A petition is submitted by the municipality of Bakun in March 1958 to the provincial council. The conflict resolution procedure is stopped since March 23, 1981.

Buguias vs. Bakun This conflict started after the construction of a welcome arc by the municipality of Bakun. A petition is filed by the municipality of Buguias in December 15, 2000. The resolution procedure is pending since January 25, 2001.


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Bokod vs. Itogon Both municipalities receiving less Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) from government because of missing of 10000 hectares of land for IRA calculation. Both municipalities wanted to resolve the issue. First hearing held in July 2004 but the procedure is stopped from July 28, 2004.

Mankayan vs. Buguias The municipality of Mankayan filed a petition against the municipality of Buguias. First hearing held on August 6, 1997. No activity found regarding the case since November 27, 1997. The issue revisited in January 17, 2002 by a protest letter from the municipality of Mankayan against the construction of a welcome arc at Abatan by the municipality of Buguias. Again, the procedure is pending since May 2004.

Buguias vs. Kibungan The municipality of Buguias filed a petition in January 2004 because of the boundary dispute between indigenous cultural communities of the municipality of Buguias and the municipality of Mangkayan. Status of the dispute resolution is pending since February 2004.

4.1.5. Cause-Effect Relationship of Boundary Conflict

This section describes the causes of boundary conflict in the region (see figure 4-2). It also introduces the effects of the boundary conflict. This information is gathered through interviews and through searching the conflict resolution working papers. There are mainly two reasons identified which stimulate the boundary conflict in the region.

Figure 4-2: Cause-effect relationship of boundary conflict

Firstly, it is difficult to conduct a political boundary survey to establish a precise technical boundary. And secondly, most of the LGUs want to have more land area. The absence of technical boundary information in one hand, on the other hand the demand for more lands triggers the LGUs to claim land from the neighbouring LGUs. This is the beginning of a boundary conflict.


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Again, the difficulty arises in a political boundary survey mainly because of the following three reasons:

a. Land Management Services (LMS) is responsible for surveying and demarcation of political boundary in the Philippines. LMS delineates the boundary based on a boundary description of LGUs. This description is narrative in nature and was prepared when the LGUs were created by the Presidential Executive Order. The names as well as boundary of LGUs changed many times over the year (e.g. see section 4.2.1). These changes generated confusion among the concerned people. In most cases, this narrative description points out only the location of Municipal Boundary Monument (MBM) without having any geographic coordinates. The monuments are usually referred as geographic landmark like rock, mountain top, name of tree etc. Sometimes, this narrative description describes the boundary line as narration like ‘slightly right to the hill’. An example of narrative description is provided in appendix-6. These geographic features changed over time and in a few cases are not visible anymore. Different people also denote the same landmark differently. When LMS conduct a political boundary survey, it invites LGUs with shared boundary to pinpoint the referred landmark. If the referred landmark is not a well known place, the LGUs try to locate it further away from their municipality to increase land area. Thus LMS ends with a conflict and denotes that area as a conflicting area.

b. The presence of contradictory boundary information has caused boundary conflict in the region. For instance, NAMRIA (National Mapping and Resource Information Authority) has a political boundary map but the NAMRIA maps are mainly topographic maps, based on old records. It is also indicated on the NAMRIA map that boundary showing on NAMRIA map is not an authoritative boundary and can be changed after cadastre/political boundary survey by LMS. In many cases, political boundary of the NAMRIA map and the LMS map did not match. But some LGUs already adopted the NAMRIA map as their political boundary. Those LGUs did not accept the boundary surveyed by LMS especially if the concerned LGUs found that its land area is reduced after LMS survey.

c. Cultural diversity in the Cordillera also has caused boundary problems. There are different cultural groups in the cordillera; they have their own cultural boundary. Existing law (recognition, identification and delineation of indigenous people’s occupied area through the DENR Administrative Order No. 2, Series 1993) of the Philippines acknowledged this boundary. In some cases, political boundary bisects the cultural boundary. The indigenous people did not accept the division of their homogeneity. They also did not allow LMS to conduct a political boundary survey inside the cultural boundary area. On the other hand concerned LGUs are not interested to give up one portion of politically divided indigenous area.

On the other hand, there are some reasons identified for the LGUs for not giving up a part of their territory, or for claiming more land. Among the causes, the following are important.

a. Having more land area means receiving more money from the national government in a form of Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA). IRA is the main source of income for some LGUs.

b. Another reason is the income generating establishments (commerce, residence, agriculture etc.) for the municipalities located in the conflicting areas. More income generating establishments means more income for the municipalities.


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During the political boundary survey, if LMS finds conflict among the adjacent LGUs, it demarcates the extent of the conflicting area. The status of the conflicting area then changes to ‘Status Quo’. The status of the conflicting area remains ‘status quo’ until the conflict is resolved. From the section 4.1.4, it is clear that it took years to resolve the status quo. The reasons for long persist conflicts are discussed in chapter five (see section 5.4). But it has the following implications.

1. Loss of IRA from Land: Conflicting LGUs are not eligible to get IRA from land for the conflicting area. The LGUs receive 4.63 pesos/100 square meters of land as IRA from land.

2. Loss of IRA from Population: The count of census population of the conflicting area can not be distributed to the municipalities before solving it. Thus the conflicting LGUs are not eligible to receive population based IRA for the conflicting area. The LGUs receive 492 pesos/person as IRA from population.

3. Wastage of municipal services: Since no municipality owns the conflicting area temporarily but wish to own in future, every municipality tries to satisfy the local people by providing municipal services.

4. Hindrance to development: No municipality is interested to invest in the conflicting area because of uncertainty.

5. Deterioration of Relationship: The officials as well as the people living in the conflicting area become enemy to each other slowly which causes unrest in the region. RDC chairman also acknowledged this in the General Orientation Seminar on Boundary Dispute on November 7, 2006. The seminar was conducted to make the people aware about the boundary conflict in the region. RDC also disseminated its message to the officials of LGUs about how it is going to resolve the conflict over the region.

“One of the reasons of un-peace in the cordillera is boundary dispute.” -Governor Maximo B. Dalog, RDC Chairman

6. Exploitation by Local People: Local people enjoy the status of ‘status quo’. They exploit the good opportunity from conflicting municipalities but did not pay to the municipality. The following paragraph is taken from the resolution no. 89, S. 2003 of Tublay municipality on July 14, 2003 supporting the local people’s tax exploitation.

“WHEREAS, this is compounded by the chronic problem of the trade in chicken dung because the dealers are also exploiting the alleged boundary dispute between the two municipalities by using a ping-pong claim to the law enforces of two municipalities: the traders claim to the law enforcers of La Trinidad that the trade is being done within the territory of Tublay but when the authorities also of Tublay try to enforce our ordinances, the traders also claim that the trade is being done within the territory of La Trinidad.”.

4.2. The Study Area

This section provides general background information about the study area. The description of the area is in terms of its evolution, boundary conflicts with contenders and information differences regarding the area of the LGUs as provided by different organizations.

4.2.1. Province of Benguet

Benguet lies in the southernmost part of CAR (see figure 3-1) and bounded by the province of Pangasinan on the south, on the east by the province of Ifugao and Nueva Viscaya, on the North by Mountain Province and on the west by the province of La Union and Ilocos Sur. By road distance, the


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provincial capital (La Trinidad) is 256 km north of Manila and 6 km north of Baguio City. Benguet has an area of about 261,648 hectares with 13 municipalities and 140 barangays (PoB, 2003). Boundary of Benguet province has changed many times over the last one hundred years. The following paragraphs describe the history of such changes in a brief.

It was during the American period (1900-1942) when the first government was formally established in the province of Benguet. Act No. 48 enacted by the United States Philippine Commission on November 22, 1900 formally created local government in Benguet with 19 townships. The concept of region started in 1908 when the Province of Benguet became a sub-province with the establishment of Mt. Province by virtue of Act No. 1876. Mt. Province was composed of seven sub-provinces: Amburayan, Apayao, Benguet, Bontoc, Ifugao, Kalinga and Lepanto. Boundary of the sub-province of Benguet was thereafter amended through the Act No. 2877 on February 4, 1920. This resulted in the abolition of the sub-provinces of Amburayan and Lepanto, parts of which were integrated in the Province of La Union and the Province of Ilocos Sur, respectively.

Finally, on June 18, 1966 Benguet became a province again. Congress enacted Republic Act No. 4695 entitled “An Act creating the provinces of Benguet, Mt. Province, Ifugao and Kalinga-Apayao”. This act provided that the province of Benguet shall compromise the sub-province of Benguet and the municipalities of Tuba, Sablan, Itogon, La Trinidad, Tublay, Atok, Bokod, Kabayan, Kapangan, Bakun, Kibungan, Mankayan and Buguias. Issuance later of Executive Order No. 220 dated July 15, 1987 creating the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) composed of the provinces of Benguet, Mt. Province, Abra, Kalinga-Apayao and Ifugao, including the city of Baguio.

Figure 4-3: Map of conflicting cases (Source: LMS, 2006)


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4.2.2. Municipality of Kapangan

Kapangan is politically subdivided into 15 barangays. The municipality is surrounded by the municipality of Kibungan on the north, municipality of Sablan and Tublay on the south, municipality of Atok on the east and the province of La Union on its west. Kapangan has conflicts with Atok, Tublay and Kibungan municipalities according to Land Management Services (LMS) (table 4.3). Even though the conflict between Kapangan and Tublay has been resolved amicably, the resolution is still not achieved its finality (figure 4-3). Total area of this municipality is 13640 hectares based on provincial report (PoB, 2003) and 20222.32 hectares based on LMS report (LMS-DENR-CAR, 2006). Total conflicting area of this municipality is 778 hectares (LMS-DENR-CAR, 2006) which is 3.85 percent of the total area.

4.2.3. Municipality of Tublay

Tublay is a smaller size municipality among the 13 municipalities within the province of Benguet. It has a land area of 8490 hectares (PoB, 2003). But according to the LMS report, land area is 8979.34 hectares (LMS-DENR-CAR, 2006) with 8 barangays. Tublay municipality has conflicts with the municipality of Bokod, Kapangan, and La Trinidad with a total of four conflicting areas (figure 4-3) covering 1315 hectares. The disputed area is 14.6 percent of the total municipal area. It has two conflicting areas with the municipality of La Trinidad. Its topography is generally mountainous and rugged with some few rolling and sloping lands in between mountain walls. It has an average elevation of 1400 meters above sea level.

4.2.4. Municipality of La Trinidad

La Trinidad is the capital town of the province of Benguet. Its strategic location makes it a premier centre of economic, social and political life of the Cordilleras. The municipality is wishing to be a component city but it is lacking land area by around 2000 hectares to meet the requirement of declaring a component city. La Trinidad has an approximate area of 8273 hectares according to the data gathered from the Municipal Planning and Development Office. Based on the updated map prepared by the Municipal Planning Team for Town Planning and Zoning, the area of the municipality is 7,877.416 hectares. The thematic map prepared by NAMRIA (National Mapping and Resource Information Authority) shows the area is 6140 hectares (PoB, 2003) and based on the LMS report, the area is 6862.32 hectare as approved by Land Management Bureau (LMB) (LMS-DENR-CAR, 2006). The total area under disputed in this municipality is 1406 hectares which is 20.5 percent of the existing area. This municipality has conflicts with the municipalities of Sablan and Tublay (figure 4-3). It is composed of 16 barangays. Shilan is one of the barangays of the municipality of La Trinidad where one of the conflicting sites is located with the municipality of Tubaly. La Trinidad is mostly a vast expanse of level land that is nested among mountain ridges. It is bounded on the north by the municipality of Tublay, on the south by the city of Baguio, on the west by the municipality of Sablan and on the east by the municipality of Itogon.

4.3. Legal Process of Boundary Conflict Resolution

The LGC highlighted the necessity of amicable conflict resolution mentioning “Boundary disputes between or among LGUs shall, as much as possible, be settled amicably”. It indicated decision procedure and decision unit clearly but not decision method. This section describes the prescribed procedure and unit of the legal decision process.


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4.3.1. Legal Procedure for Settling Municipal Boundary Dispute

The following procedure (see figure 4-4, synthesized from LGC ‘91) shall govern the settlement of municipal boundary disputes according to article 17 of the Local Government Code ‘91.

Figure 4-4: Flow diagram showing the legal procedure for boundary conflict resolution (synthesized from

the Local Government Code of the Philippines ’91)

a. Filing of petition- The municipal council concerned may initiate action by filing a petition, in the form of a resolution, with the council having jurisdiction over the dispute.

b. Contents of petition- The petition shall state the grounds, reasons or justifications therefore. c. Documents attached to petition- The petition shall be accompanied by:

i. Dully authenticated copy of the law or statute creating the LGU or any other documents showing proof of creation of the LGU;

ii. Municipal map duly certified by LMB; iii. Technical description of the boundaries of the municipality concerned; iv. Written certification of the municipal assessor as to territorial jurisdiction over the

disputed area according to records in custody; v. Written declarations or sworn statements of the people residing in the disputed area; and


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vi. Such other documents or information as may be required by the provincial council hearing the dispute

d. Answer of adverse party- Upon receipt by the council concerned of the petition together with the required documents, the municipality or municipalities complained against shall be furnished copies thereof and shall be given fifteen (15) working days within which to file their answers.

e. Hearing- Within five (5) working days after receipt of the answer of the adverse party, the provincial council shall hear the case and allow the parties concerned to present their respective evidences.

f. Joint hearing- When two or more provincial councils (e.g. conflicting municipalities locating in different provinces) jointly hear a case, they may sit en banc or designate their respective representatives. Where representatives are designated, there shall be an equal number of representatives from each provincial council. They shall elect from among themselves a presiding officer and a secretary. In case of disagreement, selection shall be drawing by lot.

g. Failure to settle- In the event the council fails to amicably settle the dispute within sixty (60) days from the date such dispute was referred thereto, it shall issue a certificate to that effect and copies thereof shall be furnished to the parties concerned.

h. Decision- Within sixty (60) days from the date the certification was issued; the dispute shall be formally tried and decided by the council concerned. Copies of the decision shall, within fifteen (15) days from the promulgation thereof be furnished the parties concerned, DILG, local assessor, Comelec, NSO, LMS and other National Government Agencies (NGAs) concerned.

i. Appeal- Within the time and manner prescribed by the Rules of Court, any party may elevate the decision of the council concern to the proper Regional Trial Court having jurisdiction over the dispute by filing therewith the appropriate pleading, stating among others, the nature of the dispute, the decision of the council concerned and the reasons for appealing therefrom. The Regional Trial Court shall decide the case within one (1) year from the filing thereof. Decisions on boundary disputes promulgated jointly by two (2) or more provincial councils shall be heard by the Regional Trial Court of the province which first took cognizance of the dispute.

Status Quo- Pending final resolution of the dispute, the status of the affected area prior to the dispute shall be maintained and continued for all purposes.

4.3.2. Decision Unit Involvement in the Legal Process

In article 16, the said code clearly referred the following responsible bodies that will take care of the resolution process for the different levels of boundary conflict:

a. Sangguniang panlungsod (city council) or sangguniang bayan (municipal council) for disputes involving two or more barangays in the same city or municipality, as the case may be;

b. Sangguniang panlalawigan (provincial council), for those involving two or more municipalities within the same province;

c. Jointly, to the sanggunians (councils) of provinces concerned, for those involving component cities or municipalities of different provinces; or

d. Jointly, to the respective sanggunians (councils), for those involving a component city vs. highly urbanized city; or municipality vs. a highly urbanized city; or two or more highly urbanized cities.


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Even though the code specifies the decision unit for the resolution of municipal boundary conflict, I shall stick to my definition that I adopted (see section1.6) in this research. According to my definition, all the people/organizations who actively participate in different arenas of the decision procedure are part of decision unit. After going through the above procedure, I identified the following organizations participates in different arenas of the legal procedure. I consider all those organizations as part of decision unit. The following paragraphs describe the relevant laws, mandates and roles of the decision unit I identified based on their appearance in the procedure.

Municipality According to section 443 of LGC, there shall be in each municipality a municipal mayor, a municipal vice-mayor, Sangguniang Bayan (SB) (Municipal Council) members, a secretary to the SB, a municipal treasurer, a municipal assessor, a municipal accountant, a municipal budget officer, a municipal planning and development coordinator (MPDC), a municipal engineer/building official, a municipal health officer and a municipal civil registrar. SB is responsible to resolve boundary conflicts at barangay level.

Province According to section 459 of LGC of the Philippines ‘91, provinces are composed of municipalities; or municipalities and component cities. Province as a political and corporate unit of government serves as a dynamic mechanism for developmental processes and effective governance of LGUs within its territorial jurisdiction. Section 463 of the code mentioned that there shall be in each province a governor, a vice-governor, members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) (Provincial Council), a secretary to the SP. The SP is responsible to take care of municipal boundary disputes.

Land Management Bureau (LMB) For the purpose of complying the DBM’s requirements on the matter of IRA, LMB prepares Masterlist of Land Areas of Cities/Municipalities, arranged according to Regions, to Provinces and Cities/ Municipalities, and transmit the same to DBM every three years. Data in LMB regarding land area of LGUs comes from: 1) Approved Cadastre Surveys by LMS; and 2) Approved Political Boundary Survey by LMS (Tiamson, 2006). According to LGC, LMB is responsible to authenticate boundary map of LGU concerned in conflict resolution. LMB is also one of the member organizations of the formed Task Force to resolve boundary conflicts.

Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) DILG assists the President in the exercise of general supervision over local governments; advise the President in the promulgation of policies, rules and regulations. DILG establishes and prescribes rules, regulations and other issuances implementing laws on public order and safety, the general supervision over local governments and the promotion of local autonomy and community (DILG, 2005). DILG is the official custodian of copies of all documents on boundary disputes (Art. 19 Rule III, IRR LGC) (Onus, 2006).

National Statistics Office (NSO) NSO is one of the line agencies of Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). NSO is responsible in collecting, compiling, classifying, producing, publishing, and disseminating general-purpose statistics as provided for in Commonwealth Act No. 591. NSO prepares for and undertakes all censuses on population which is the basis for the calculation of population based IRA for the LGUs (NSO, 2006).


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Land Management Services LMS prepares land area for the LGUs and sends the information to LMB for approval after political/cadastral survey of the LGUs. The survey undertaken for the purpose of defining or establishing the respective boundaries of the LGUs is known as Political Boundary Survey; and the monuments used to define or indicate these boundaries is called Political Boundary Monuments (PBMs). PBMs are definitely fixed in position on the surface of the earth by permanent marking with azimuths and distances to “points off reference” of known geographic positions or Philippine Plane Coordinates (Ventura, 2006). Three types of PBMs are used to indicate political boundary: a) Provincial and City Boundary Monuments; b) Municipal Boundary Monuments (MBM); and c) Barangay Boundary Monument (BBM). According to Section 609-615 of DAO 98-12 (Department Administrative Order), LMS follows the following procedure during municipal boundary survey.

a. Authorities of the municipalities separated by the boundary to be surveyed shall be consulted and requested to indicate on the ground the common boundaries.

b. All corners accepted as common by the authorities of the adjoining municipalities shall be defined by monuments as specified in Sec. 272 (b) of the DAO 98-12.

c. In case of disputed municipal boundaries, the procedures provided by Section 118 and 119 (Article 17) of LGC shall be adopted, inclusive, shall be followed (discussed in section 4.3.1).

d. In cadastral projects, the lots within the disputed area shall be surveyed and the area shall be made as a cadastral case.

e. After the final decision of proper authorities, the adopted municipal boundaries shall be monumented with standard MBMs as specified in Section. 272 (a) of the DAO 98-12.

Commission on Elections (Comelec) The commission maintains its authority and independence in the conduct of elections. The Commission on Elections is mandated to give life and meaning to the basic principle that sovereignty resides in the people and all government authority emanates from them. Comelec updates voter lists after the resolution of boundary conflict (Comelec, 2005).

4.3.3. Decision Unit in a Changing Decision Process

As mentioned in chapter 3 (section 3.1) RDC formed a Task Force to resolve the boundary conflicts over the region. This Task Force will act as a decision unit in a changing decision process. The changing decision process is discussed in chapter 6. The Task Force is composed of several organizations: NEDA, NAMRIA, LMS, LMB, DBM, DILG and TWG of GIS Network. The mandates and roles of some of the organizations are already discussed in the previous section. This section discusses the same for the remaining organizations.

National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) NEDA is a national organization, working for the economic development of the Philippines. It has regional offices across the country headed by a Regional Director. The Regional Director shall be appointed by the President. The Regional Development Office of NEDA shall provide technical staff support as may be required by the implementing agencies in the regions; monitor regional and interregional development policies, plans and programs; prepare integrated reports on regional planning, conduct studies on regional development policies; and perform such other planning tasks as may be assigned by the Director-General (NEDA, 2004).


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Department of Budget and Management (DBM) DBM evaluates the annual budget proposals of agency regional offices, state universities and colleges etc. It prepares and issues necessary Allotment Release Orders and Notices of Cash Allocation and other budget action documents to make effect the release of fund. It prepares funding checks for the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) shares of LGUs in the regions (DBM, 2004). The share of distributed IRA to different LGUs is 23% for the provinces, 23% for the cities, 34% for the municipalities, and 20% for the barangays. IRA due for LGUs is determined on the basis of collection from National Revenue Tax as certified by Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and distributed by DBM. DBM uses the following formula for IRA distribution: 50% based on the population; 25% based on land area; and 25% is equal sharing of all LGUs. Equal sharing means out of 34% received for the municipalities, 25% is disbursed equally among the municipalities (Tiamson, 2006). DBM accounts population based on the certification by the administrator of National Statistics Office (NSO). Land area is considered based on the certification by the director of LMB (Fangsilat, 2006).

National Mapping and Resource Information Authority (NAMRIA) NAMRIA surveys and maps the nation's land and water environment, primarily in support of the various programs of its mother unit, the DENR and the national government. The mandates of NAMRIA is to provide both the public and private sectors with map-making services as well as geographic and resource information (NAMRIA, 2006). Being part of the Task Force, NAMRIA is responsible to train the officials of LGUs about GIS in conflict resolution.

GIS Network Technical Working Group GIS Network is a private organization engaging the GIS professionals over the Cordillera. The mandates of this group are following: Principle contribute

o To create a meta data base catalogue of geographical data, o To develop mechanism to improve accessibility of data, o To link GIS facilities by promoting cooperation and data exchange between member

institutions, o To formulate mechanisms to standardize methods for data collection and processing for GIS

applications, o To strengthen data and information management in the region o To assist needs of network members in developing programs and projects for sustainable

development of the region o Develop a core group of trainers who will extend assistance to network members, o To develop qualified GIS manpower, o Forge linkages with international and national research organisations to enhance the network’s

sources and data, and o To help promote adoption of GIS in academic courses at State Colleges and Universities.


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4.4. Conclusion

Even though all the conflicts are municipal boundary conflict, but the level of complexity would increase to resolve these conflicts when the boundary of a municipality shapes the boundary of a province or even further to a region. Thus the conflicts are divided into three levels: inter-regional, inter-provincial, and inter-municipal. All the three levels of political boundary conflict exist in CAR.

Factual disagreement (e.g. not agree with the narrative description of the boundaries) is found as the main source of boundary conflict. The reason of this disagreement is to achieve the conflicting goals (e.g. increase of municipal income) of the contenders which accelerated the boundary conflicts. If the conflict persists for a long time, it has impact on economic and social life. Hence, there is a need to resolve the conflicts. The Local Government Code of the Philippines ’91 serves so far as a legal guideline for the resolution of boundary conflicts.


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5. Evaluation of the Quality of Decisions So Far

This chapter evaluates the quality of the decisions from the selected resolved and unresolved cases. Section 5.2 presents a comparative description of the decision making between the cases. The evaluation is done following the comparative description in section 5.3. The developed framework for the quality evaluation of a decision (figure 2-6) outlines both the comparative description and the evaluation by breaking down the decisions into decision variables (procedure, unit and method). Through comparative evaluation I analyze why one decision failed to achieve intended objectives whereas other succeeded in conflict resolution. The identified weaknesses of both cases are analyzed to reveal the root problem of decision making in section 5.4.

5.1. Decision Problems of the Selected Cases

Ackoff (Ackoff, 1981) defined a decision problem as a situation where an individual or a group perceives a difference between a present state and a desired state and where:

The individual or group has alternative course of actions available The choice of action can have a significant effect on this perceived difference The individual or group is uncertain a priori as to which alternative should be selected

Decision problems in the selected two cases have both similarity and differences. The similarity is; in both cases decisions required to delineate a boundary line between MBMs. The delineation required between MBM 9 and MBM 10 (figure 5-1) in the resolved case and between MBM 22 and MBM 24 (figure 5-2) in the unresolved case. The differences are:

o In the resolved case, the location of the MBM 10 is questioned (figure 5-1). A decision is required to locate a common MBM involving three municipalities. The municipalities are Kapangan, Tublay and Atok. The municipality of Atok is concerned about the location of the MBM 10 because any change in the location of the MBM 10 would change the area of this municipality. Once the location of the MBM 10 is fixed, Atok does not have any stake for the delineation of boundary line between MBM 9 and MBM 10.

o In the unresolved case, the location of the MBM 23 is questioned (figure 5-2) which is located in between MBM 22 and MBM 24.


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Figure 5-1: Conflicting common boundary point in the resolved case (MBM 10)

Figure 5-2: Location of MBMs and conflicting area in the unresolved case


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5.2. Comparative Description of Decision Making between the Cases

This section compares the decision processes of the two cases. Only for the resolved case it describes the outcome because there was no final decision for the unresolved case. This description also leads to evaluation of the quality of decisions in next section.

5.2.1. Decision Process

The decision process describes and compares the followed decision procedure, the structure of the decision unit involvement with its role, and the decision methods used for decision making in both cases.


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Figure 5-3: Activities undertaken in the resolved case (synthesized from the documents collected from the

provincial council)


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Figure 5-4: Activities undertaken to resolve the boundary conflict in the unresolved case (synthesized

from the minutes, resolutions and other documents collected from the conflicting municipalities)


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5.2.1.1. Decision Procedure

The decision procedures followed in the resolved and unresolved cases are presented in figure 5-3 and 5-4 respectively. In the resolved case, procedure started in mid 1994 and ended in December 1996. Whereas in the unresolved case, two attempts were made to resolve boundary conflict. But none of the attempts reached a final decision (because of procedural limitation). The first attempt started in January 1949 and ended in December 1949. The second attempt was in 2002-03. The decision procedure followed in the resolved case can be qualified as better than the unresolved case because of the following reasons:

o In the resolved case, the followed decision procedure was simple, straight forward and easy to understand. It adopted the legal decision procedure which is backed up by the Local Government Code of Philippines ‘91. Whereas there was no specific/agreed decision procedure adopted to resolve the conflict in the unresolved case. The resolved case consistently followed the steps of the said procedure (figure 4-4). The step “monumenting on the ground” is adopted which is not mentioned in the said procedure (figure 5-3). This is done to make the decision permanent on the ground. An effort is made in this research to structure the procedure followed in the unresolved case by linking individual steps. It is found that the procedure is ambiguous and either too many links can be drawn among the steps or the steps are not coordinated (figure 5-4).

o When the second attempt was made for the unresolved case, there was a formal procedure that could be followed like the resolved case. But the contending parties in this case were reluctant to proceed with formal procedure. The following statements were recorded during my fieldwork interview from the concerned municipalities of unresolved case. They pointed out the reasons for not proceeding with the legal way.

“It would be better for me to go to the court because Provincial Council is a political office. The court decision may go against the municipality but it is not me personally.” --- William H. Esteban, Councillor, La Trinidad Municipality

“Both sides are considering that they can solve it by themselves. Since La Trinidad is not filing petition, so does Tublay. Taking too much time to solve in Provincial Council is another reason for not going there.” --- Prudencio Mendoza, MPDC, Tublay Municipality

o The chairman of Boundary Dispute Committee (Provincial Council) handled the resolved case with impartiality as a facilitator. The chairman provided equal opportunity to the contenders. Every single member was able to present their argument, logic and opinion. The chairman argued to hear the opinion of the municipality of Atok to locate common boundary point (figure 5-1). The following citation is taken from one of the hearing meetings which reflects the neutrality of the treatment to the parties.

“Now, there is a problem here with respect to Mount Toctocan as the common boundary. Since Tublay is enforcing this, any decision, agreement by the parties before this requires the presence of Atok. Since it is the common boundary between Kapangan, Tublay and Atok, we have to involve Atok if your stand is to be followed.”---Chairman, Boundary Dispute Committee, on October 19, 1995 hearing

Like the resolved case, the parties were treated equally by the provincial governor when the unresolved case was referred to the provincial governor in 1949. But during its second attempt, unlike the resolved case, the parties followed negotiation type of Alternative Dispute


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Resolution (ADR) approach (section 2.2.1) and no third party was involved to oversee the process.

o Neutrality is maintained for the selection of meeting venue in the resolved case (table 5.1) but not in the unresolved case. Most of the meeting took place at the session hall of the provincial council in the resolved case. The session hall has considered as a neutral place for meeting. But in the unresolved case, only one meeting was held in the provincial board and the rests meetings were held at the office of only one conflicting municipality.

o Every activity, even every speech during the hearing was recorded in the resolved case. The provincial council prepared a book with all the documents regarding this decision and kept it in a safe place. On the other hand, the documents relating to the unresolved case were not organized. I had to collect and accumulate separate pieces of papers from different offices during my fieldwork. These offices include MPDC offices, municipal DILG offices, municipal council (SB) offices, municipal lawyer’s offices etc. from both municipalities.

o The decision was implemented on the ground in resolved case. The parties placed Municipal Boundary Monuments (MBMs) with frequent interval to delineate the boundary on the ground.

Table 5.1: Comparison of the selection of meeting venue in the resolved case Meeting No. Date Place 1 July 26, 1994 Kapangan 2 August 18, 1994 Tublay 3 September, 1994 Tublay 4 October 19, 1995 PC 5 January 10, 1996 Toctocan Mountain as conflicting common Boundary Point 6 February 16, 1996 PC 7 March 15, 1996 PC 8 April 20, 1996 Kapangan 9 December 3, 1996 PC

Even though the decision procedure followed in the resolved case is better in quality in comparison with the unresolved case, it has following limitations too.

o The adopted procedure (legal procedure) did not specify the next step after an agreement. Getting proper share of IRA was the driving force for one of the municipalities to resolve the conflict. Getting proper IRA is dependent upon the necessary update of land area by LMS. Figure 5-1 is prepared from the data obtained from LMS in 2006. The appearance of the conflicting area in this map represents that LMS is still not aware of the decision made 10 years back. This weakness made the whole process ineffective.

o Even though the steps of the procedure followed consistently in the resolved case but some of the rules of the steps were disrespected. For instance, it is mentioned in the Code that the procedure should take 60 days for hearing/agreement; however it took almost one year in this case. Two reasons are identified for this disrespect. Firstly, the decision unit were uncertain how to proceed with the step “amicable settlement”. Secondly, changes in the decision unit in the middle of the procedure.


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5.2.1.2. Decision Unit

Even though in both cases the structure of the decision unit was the ‘Coalition of Autonomous Actors’ (see section 2.2.2), approach of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) (see section 2.2.1) was different. The resolved case followed the facilitation approach whereas the unresolved case followed the negotiation approach of ADR.

The municipality of Kapangan filed a petition against the municipality of Tublay in the Provincial Council in the resolved case. Thus, these three institutions formed the decision unit by law in this case. The Boundary Dispute Committee of provincial council represented the provincial council headed by a chairman. The municipalities were the contenders whereas the Boundary Dispute Committee played the role of facilitator in this case. Even though Atok municipality took part of this structure, its presence and role was very much insignificant.

During its first attempt (Jan-Dec, 1949) in the unresolved case, the conflicting municipalities were under the sub-province of Benguet in Mountain Province. These four institutions formed the decision unit which was also a coalition of autonomous actors like the resolved case. But during its second attempt (2002-03), Benguet had become a Province. The municipalities could have gone to the provincial council like the resolved case but they didn’t. They attempted to solve the problem by themselves. So the decision making process was purely a negotiation process.

Table 5.2: Structure of decision unit involvement in the decision processes

Cases Attempt Structure of decision unit

Resolved case First -Boundary Dispute Committee, Provincial council, Benguet -Kapangan municipality -Tublay municipality -Atok municipality -Local people

First Mountain Province Benguet Sub-Province Tublay Municipal District La Trinidad Municipal District Local People

Unresolved case

Second -Tublay municipality La Trinidad Municipal District

The actors were the key staff from their respective institutions. Table 5.2 shows the structure of the decision unit involvement in these cases. Appendix-7 provides the detail of the participants. In both cases, decision unit almost equally qualified because of the following reasons:

o The resolved case was the first ever made resolution decision in the history of Benguet province. This means the unit did not have any prior experience of the same kind of decision making which made the process inefficient. For instance, a good facilitator should have good preparation to handle the conflict resolution which was lacking in the resolved case. The following dialogue of a new chairman of the Boundary Dispute Committee reflects the lack of preparedness for a meeting.


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“May we know from the parties if there is any record in their position with respect to the previous proceedings? We would like to know so that we will know where we should start. As of now, we do not really know where the previous committee have already undertaken. Otherwise, we will start again. All over again.”---Chairman, Boundary Dispute Committee, on October 19, 1995 hearing.

The new chairman is supposed to come to the meeting after reading the previous documents. An experienced facilitator usually does so. On the other hand in the unresolved case, the decision unit had the experience of the same kind of decision making. La Trinidad municipality solved its intra municipal (Barangay) boundary conflict (resolution no 12-93 on October 26, 1993) and the resolved case is an example for Tublay municipality. Their experience was also reflected in the decision process during the selection of a decision method.

o Whenever any technical difficulty appeared in the process, the decision unit was very much generous to ask help from the available municipal professionals in both cases. Since the decision makers were mainly politician, they were very much sceptical to answer any technical question. For this, they immediately asked help from the professionals. The following statement reveals the above fact in the resolved case. When a member of the Boundary Dispute Committee asked a question to the mayor of Kapangan municipality whether he was able to distinguish the shape of an imaginary line from Mt. Sob-ong to MBM 9, the mayor immediately replied the following:

“I am hesitant to answer that. I need an Engineer.” ---Mayor Agpas, Kapangan municipality, boundary dispute meeting, October 19, 1995

Even though the decision unit in the resolved case seek help from the available professionals, the unit did not show their professionalism. The major weakness is not informing other relevant organizations of the decision it made through proper channels to make the decision more effective.

In the unresolved case, the mayors of both municipalities asked their respective engineers, MPDCs and assessors to prepare the tax maps, the business maps and the property maps and to present during the joint dispute resolution meeting on September 23, 2002.

o Both parties were assertive and cooperative in the resolved case. They tried to reach an agreement and at the same time they were very much calculative to their constituencies. The unit followed the principled approach of problem solving (see table 2.3). The following statement reflects the above points:

“Kapangan will be sacrificed if we adopt Sob-ong and maintain straight line method since this is at the northern part. That is why we are reiterating our stand that we will abandon the straight line so that there will be equity in the distribution of land area and to respect the occupants in the area.”- Mayor Agpas, Kapangan Municipality on October 19, 1995

On the other hand in the unresolved case, parties were assertive to solve the problem but not cooperative each other like the resolved case. They passed resolutions (e.g. resolution no 176, s. 2002 for Tublay) in their respective municipalities to solve but sometimes they made their own decision without informing each other (putting up sign board, highway boundary etc. see figure 5-4).


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5.2.1.3. Decision Method

Decision methods followed in both cases have similarity and differences. The decision problem of locating the MBM was solved through searching old documents, getting help from local people, consulting with old officials in both cases. Different methods were adopted (or intended to adopt) for the delineation decisions. The resolved case followed Spatial Single Criteria Evaluation (SSCE) method whereas the unresolved case intended to follow Multi Criteria Evaluation (MCE) method. The method is not explicitly mentioned. During my interview, I asked them to clarify. This is the only agreed method between the parties in two attempts.

In the resolved case, tax map was used as spatial criterion for decision making. The conflicting area is divided based on who is paying tax in which municipality. On the other hand, conflicting interests of both municipalities were identified in the unresolved case (The interests are not explicitly identified. The nature of the criteria the contenders selected does not reflect the interests clearly). Those interests were captured as evaluation criteria in a conflict resolution meeting on September 23, 2002. The criteria are listed below:

Criteria Set on Settling Tublay-La Trinidad Boundary: A. Geographical

- Bodied of water - Ridge - Rock Formation

B. Documents- previous years to CY 2000 - Resolutions- previous - Ordinances - Tax Declaration - Land Titles - Buildings - Business Permits - Political/Cadastral Survey (DENR)

C. Public Consultations- Present - Residents concern - Endorsement of Barangay Officials

Both methods have some strengths and weaknesses in the context of boundary demarcation in the Philippines which are discussed in the following paragraphs:

o Both methods (SSCE and MCE) are considered as a formal method. The methods are technically sound. But SSCE did not represent the decision maker’s objectives and preferences in this case perfectly. Various conflicting interests/objectives were discussed in meetings like increasing IRA, Communal Forest, Rice Terraces, and Taxes etc. But the adopted method was not able to structure those issues to the preferred goal and objectives. Tax line boundary which is accepted by both parties is generated based on tax map that could be evaluated by other criteria (e.g. rice terrace, land area, communal forest etc.) to make the decision more rational. Representation of decision maker’s goal, objectives, and preferences is the major strength of MCE.

o The adopted method in the resolved case took only one month to complete the task. Required data was available within municipal offices and the professionals of both municipalities


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carried out the necessary tasks. On the other hand, it became clear from my interview with the municipal professionals that they were not able to handle the MCE. Even today they are not capable to carry out MCE operation. To adopt this method, they required to hire expert. But there was no budget for this kind of activities in the municipalities. Also municipalities don’t own some data (e.g. Rock Formation) among the identified criteria to carry out the MCE operation.

o The idea of SSCE method came from the chairman of Boundary Dispute Committee. Since no group raised any questions regarding the SSCE method in resolved case, it means they were satisfied with the method. Otherwise, the suggestion of the chairman would not have been accepted. During the decision process, it is observed that suggestion was immediately opposed by the contenders if they don’t agree in resolved case. But in the unresolved case, the idea of the MCE method came from the parties themselves without any third party advice.

o The result of the SSCE method came out from the overlay of tax maps in a wall was accepted by the contenders in the resolved case. There was no obscurity in the method. The parties were able to see and compare between input and output of the method. On the other hand, no method outcome took place in reality for the unresolved case.

o In the resolved case, tax maps were displayed in the wall and overlaid. The officials from both municipalities examined the maps to find out inconsistencies. This open display unwrapped any misinformation presented in the prepared maps. Municipal engineers and municipal assessors from both municipalities sat together to prepare the tax maps. They helped each other. The following citations from the conversation among the participants of a hearing on February 16, 1996 reveal the collaborative strength of the SSCE method in the resolved case.

“One suggestion, Mr. Chairman. How about if, before we meet on March 15, 1996; the technical people of the two municipalities will first synchronize so that if we will submit, it will be already near to finality.”---Vice Mayor, Kapangan Municipality.

“What is the reaction of Councillor Eckman to the suggestion of Vice Mayor?”---Chairman, Boundary Dispute Committee, PC.

“I think we do not have any objection to that, sir. It is very good.”---Councillor Eckman, Tublay Municipality.

On the other hand in the unresolved case, the chosen MCE method facilitated collaboration through following ways:

o It forced the decision unit to sit together to identify conflicting interests o It facilitated dialogue among the contenders which is crucial for conflict resolution.

5.2.2. Decision Outcome

Since no decision was made in the unresolved case, this section describes only the decision outcome of resolved case. The decision outcome of this case is a good one because of the following reasons:

o Reviewing the characteristics provided by Herman (Hermann, 2001), the outcome of this conflict resolution process is a consensus because all parties gave away some of their position but did not lose out completely (neither the straight line nor the zigzag line-see figure 5-5).

o The relationship between the contending municipalities is still very good and never was bad after the decision. I asked the Vice Mayor of Tublay municipality about the current relationship with the officials of Kapangan municipality during interview. He answered with smile saying “don’t try to a make story, we are friends and we have a very good relationship”.


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o There is no more problem on the ground; local people were informed about the decision. Some people had to change property title from one municipality to another; both municipal officials helped the people to transfer the title and it was without any charge.

Figure 5-5: Alternative boundary lines based on position and tax map in resolved case

5.3. Evaluation of Decision Quality

Based on the developed framework for decision quality evaluation in chapter 2 (figure 2-6) and description of decision making in section 5.2, following section evaluates the quality of the decisions made for both resolved and unresolved cases.

5.3.1. Scoring of the Criteria

A qualitative (Ordinal) scale (Good Quality, Medium Quality and Poor Quality) is used to evaluate the quality. This scale indicates the scores of considered criteria for quality evaluation (see figure 2-6 for the criteria). Table 5.3 shows the performance of the decisions for each criterion used for the evaluation. The purpose of this evaluation is to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the decisions in resolving boundary conflict. Hence, the scores are not aggregated for the higher level evaluation because importance of each evaluation criterion is not investigated in this research.


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Table 5.3: Comparative scores of the criteria for quality evaluation between the cases Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Criteria Used Evaluation Score Resolved

case Unresolved case

Procedural clarity and understandibility Good Poor Procedural conformity with existing law Medium Poor Treatment of parties Good NA4 Atmosphere/Venue Good Poor Documentation of Decision Good Medium Confirmation with relevant organization Poor NA

Quality of Decision Procedure

Implementation of decision Good NA Prior experience of same kind of decision Poor Good Professional knowledge use Medium Medium

Quality of Decision Unit Attitude of the Parties Good Medium

Methodological Soundness Good Good Representation of goals and preferences Poor Good Organizational capability Good Poor Satisfaction with and acceptance of the method Good Good Satisfaction with and confidence in the method outcome

Good NA

Quality of Decision Process

Quality of Decision Method

Interaction quality Good Good Conflict resolution outcome Good NA Status of relationship Good NA

Quality of Decision

Quality of Decision Outcome

Status of real problem Good NA

5.3.2. Evaluation Result

Looking at the scores in table 5.3, the following observations can be drawn in this research: o The scores of the unresolved case reveal that a technically good decision method and a

good/medium quality decision unit didn’t produce a decision because of deficiencies in decision procedure.

o Poor performance of the “representation of goal, objectives and preferences” criterion in the resolved case highlights the necessity of a technically good method but organizational capability needs to be considered (unresolved case) for this adoption.

o Decision unit quality from both cases discloses the fact that lack of experience can be overcome in decision making if:

1. the decision unit is generous enough to seek professional assistant; and 2. have a good attitude and problem solving strategy.

o Poor performance of the criterion “Confirmation with relevant organization” makes the decision ineffective in the resolved case. This reveals the lack of procedural knowledge of the decision unit.

o Good scores of the decision outcome criteria verify that a good process produce good outcome.

4 Not applicable


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5.4. Identification and Analysis of Weaknesses

This section discusses the reasons behind the poor performance of some of the evaluation criteria. The reasons are identified through interviews during fieldwork and analysing the documents of the selected cases. The answer of questionnaire survey also supports the reasons (see appendix-5). The reasons of identified weaknesses are structured in figure 5-6. This discussion also clarifies the reasons of long lasting ‘status quo’ status of boundary conflict which is raised in chapter four (see section 4.1.5).

Change in the decision unit is one of the reasons of long lasting conflict (see figure 5-3, it took almost a year to start again the procedure in the resolved case because of the change in the decision unit). The changes occur because of the election. The tenure of elected officials in the municipalities as well as in the provincial council is three years which the parties consider very short. Whenever the new officials come into power, they are either not interested to investigate the old case or they start from the beginning. This attitude of the decision unit causes procedural delay. The unit also considers that it’s tenure is too short to acquire experience and exploit the experiences for next decisions.

The decision unit faces ‘what to do?’ problem during the ‘amicable settlement’ step of the procedure. The ‘amicable settlement’ step is unclear for the decision unit. It is also evident that even after making a decision, the people involved in decision making don’t know “what to do next” (resolved case). They are not well aware of the procedural steps to follow on the one hand. On the other hand, the followed procedure (legal procedure) did not specify clearly what to do after an agreement (see figure 4-4).

Figure 5-6: Weaknesses in decision process keep sustaining status quo

The members of the Boundary Dispute Committee are not interested to make any decision in the provincial council because they are elected officials. They feel that if the decision goes in favour of one municipality, they would not get vote from the other. Hence, they tried to hang on the problem for years. On the other hand, the conflicting municipalities are not interested to file a petition in the provincial council to resolve a conflict for two reasons. Firstly, the officials of the municipalities are also elected. They are scared that if the decision goes against their incumbent municipality, it would go against their political career. They are worried that the opposition would take chance during the election by informing the people that earlier officials gave up some land of this municipality.


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Secondly, if the municipal officials feel that the provincial council is not politically favourable for them; they would not go to provincial council for filing a petition. Even if one of the contending municipalities found the provincial council is politically favourable for it and filed a petition, the other municipality always seeks extension of time so that no decision is reached.

There is absence of technical people in the committee to support the procedure where necessary. Conflict resolution is a long term process and requires arranging several meetings, collecting data, hiring experts etc. But there is no fund allocated for this purpose. Poor performance of the “representation of goal, objectives and preferences” criterion in resolved case highlights the necessity of technically good method but organizational capability needs to be considered (unresolved case) for this adoption.

5.5. Conclusion

A decision unit can simplify its decision problem. Several interests (IRA, communal forests, taxes, rice terraces etc) were discussed during the hearing in the resolved case which the parties considered important for them. The unit discussed those factors to be considered for the decision making. But at the end the decision unit simplified the problem and adopted Tax Line boundary as the final decision. It is unknown in this research why the unit simplified its problem. Is it because of its lack of capability to handle a good method that can take into account all the interests for the evaluation? In the resolved case, consideration of additional alternatives helped the contenders to come with a consensus from the positional bargaining. Hence, exploration of alternative boundary options is immensely important in boundary conflict resolution. Also in the unresolved case, the unit identified their conflicting interests but were unable to handle those interests.

From the above cases, we can learn that, a method that takes into account those considerations can ease the conflict resolution process. Sometimes the goodness of a decision unit and the goodness of a decision procedure can overcome the lacking of the decision method (resolved case). To apply a technically sound decision method requires a good quality decision unit who can operate the method (unresolved case).

From the analysis of the identified weaknesses in section 5.4, I can say that the quality of the decision unit has impact on the quality of the decision procedure and vice versa. The short tenure of the decision unit is a procedural limitation. This procedural limitation does not allow the decision unit to gain experiences and reuse the experiences for the next decision making. Again, “What to do next?” is a weakness of the decision unit because they are not aware of the procedure. But this weakness of the decision unit can be improved by improving the quality of the decision procedure. For instance, an additional step at the beginning of the procedure can make the decision unit aware of the procedure. This additive step could be “to inform the parties about the procedure”.

When a decision making process gets deadlock because of the unwillingness of the decision unit (e.g. scared about political career), the procedure should allow the contenders to seek for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) approaches. The opportunity to seek for other ADR is narrowed down by the rigidness of the legal decision procedure. It does not allow the contenders to go to the court before any decision is reached in the provincial council. This limitation makes the contenders feel for a different procedure. In the resolved case, ‘amicable settlement’ steps took more than a year because the followed (legal) procedure did not specify what to do during the ‘amicable settlement’. There is emptiness in that step. There should have been a methodological procedure in this step of the procedure. Can a good method improve this lacking of the procedure?


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The code does not specify any decision method to resolve the conflict. This limitation of the code opens up an opportunity to apply different decision methods to explore the above question.

Political nature and frequent changes in the decision unit; and lack of technical staff and resources; make the provincial council as well as the contending municipalities to think of a permanent technical organization that can assist the conflict resolution. This desire of the decision unit is honoured by the Regional Development Council (RDC) who formed a new decision unit called ‘Task Force’ to resolve the boundary conflict in the CAR. The task force is composed of technical organizations and permanent in nature. The task force is also interested to overcome the weaknesses of the earlier decision methods. Hence, the task force is exploring the way of making good quality decisions. On its way, it is following a new decision procedure and a decision method (SMCE) to resolve the conflict. In the following chapter the quality of the new decision process in the resolved case will be evaluated.


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6. SMCE to Enhance Decision Quality

This chapter evaluates decision quality when Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) is being introduced as a decision method in a changing decision making process. Relevant changes in other decision variables are also considered for the evaluation. The changes occurred in the decision procedure and the decision unit as well. The decision quality is evaluated using the same framework (figure 2-6) as developed in chapter 2. Particular emphasis has been put on the identified weaknesses in chapter 5 in the light of whether this new process would be able to address the weaknesses. This chapter starts with a brief description of the evolution of this new process. A detail discussion on the circumstances where SMCE will be appropriate or not in boundary conflict resolution ends this chapter.

6.1. Boundary Conflict as a Regional Issue

The issue of boundary conflict started at the regional level in a meeting of Regional Development Council (RDC) at Ifugao on September 2, 2005. RDC Chairman shared his observation on that meeting. He indicated that one of the causes of boundary conflict is the NAMRIA (National Mapping and Resource Information Authority) map. He cited the case of Mt. Province where NAMRIA excluded some barangays and then included in adjacent provinces. He added that despite the annotation marks mentioned on NAMRIA maps are just temporary and not authoritative; some provinces are using it as a reference. He then suggested that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) would coordinate with NAMRIA to establish correct boundaries.

This triggered the issuance of RDC Resolution No. CAR-034 requesting NAMRIA and DENR to assist the LGUs in CAR to settle boundary conflicts. The issue surfaced once again in another meeting at RDC on November 17, 2005. In this meeting, the province of Kalinga presented the boundary conflicts between and among adjacent municipalities, provinces and regions. RDC then issued Resolution No. CAR-044 requesting provinces and municipalities adjacent the Province of Kalinga to commence collaboration to settle boundary issue.

RDC received NAMRIA’s response on November 14, 2005; with the proposition “boundary conflicts can be best settled among and by the government leaders themselves”. A follow up communication on November 18, 2005 recommended that if RDC comes up with a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with other parties concerned, NAMRIA will provide technical assistance in conduct of relocation survey, monumenting and final mapping. NAMRIA also pointed out that LGUs concerned shall provide the necessary funding since this type of activity is not included in NAMRIA’s regular budget. DENR also forwarded a communication to RDC on February 6, 2006 explaining that DENR or any of its Bureau and attached agency is not mandated to resolve political boundary disputes between LGUs.

Given these trigger points, the GIS network Technical Working Group (TWG) self motivated and responded to assist LGUs in resolving the boundary conflicts in its meeting on February 17, 2006. RDC took the opportunity of the GIS Network to study the matter. The Network agreed that a better appreciation of the issue may be made if stakeholders are brought together in a workshop. Therefore, the TWG of GIS Network was tasked to identify the participants and design the workshop.


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In June 2006, the RDC Chairman reiterated his concern during RDC Budget Dialogue. He invited Cabinet representatives and also extended his invitation to DENR particularly NAMRIA to visit CAR on July 13, 2006 to discuss the issue. In this meeting, intention of RDC was graciously honoured. Following the dialogue with the Cabinet representatives, a technical delegation composed of DENR-CAR, LMS and NEDA-CAR (in its capacity as the GIS Network TWG) was sent to NAMRIA to discuss about the design of orientation seminar. That meeting led to a draft MOA that sought to have an appropriate body to oversee the whole process. For this, a Regional Task Force on Boundary Conflict Resolution was created in September 2006 by RDC Resolution No. 47 with the function of:

a) drafting operating procedures; b) finding appropriate arrangements that will secure financial and logistic support; c) conducting a general orientation seminar on boundary conflict where all governors, chairmen

of provincial committees on boundary conflicts, mayors and other concerned LGU officials were expected to participate;

d) rendering periodic reports to RDC on its activities;

The Task Force convened on October 5, 2006 with NEDA as the presiding officer over DBM, DILG, DENR and SPs of the various provinces. In this meeting, the MOA was once more scrutinized; the design of the general orientation seminar was reviewed and approved. Finally, on November 7, 2006; the “General Orientation on Boundary Conflict Resolution” seminar was held in Baguio City. Almost 140 officials were gathered from different LGUs, PCs, NGAs all over CAR. In this orientation, DENR is nominated as the chairman of the Task Force. NAMRIA and NEDA central office showed a great interest after the orientation and want to replicate the process for the entire country. For this reason the organizations are now exploring Foreign Funding to support the process financially.

6.2. Evaluation of the Decision Quality in a Changing Process

This section evaluates the quality of decision making of the changing process. The section evaluates the decision quality only on the process oriented approach and not the outcome, as the process is still ongoing (see evaluation framework, figure 2-6). It has three subsections qualifying the three decision variables: decision procedure, decision unit and decision method. A comparison of the qualification is made between the applied decision variables in the ‘resolved cases’ (discussed in chapter 5) and the current case.

6.2.1. Quality of the Decision Procedure

The current decision procedure is divided into two parts (figure 6-1). The first part of the procedure is common for the whole region but the second part is this particular conflicting case. The first part leads to capacity building and the second part leads to decision making. The first part will end in one go, but the second part is an iterative process.

The procedure started when RDC realized that boundary conflicts are a major hindrance for development in the region. In order to solve this problem RDC formed a Task Force involving the National Government Agencies (NAMRIA, NEDA, DBM, LMS, LMB, DILG, TWG-GIS) of the region. The Task Force arranged the general orientation seminar to generate awareness about the boundary conflicts to the Local Chief Executives (LCEs) in the region. In this seminar, the Task Force informed and clarified the procedure it will follow. The task Force also identified interested LGUs in the region wishing to solve the problem. The interested LGUs are supposed to pay the cost of conflict resolution. A MOA has been signed between the LGUs and the Task Force. Currently, the Task Force


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is training the signed LGUs about GIS, Decision Making, and Conflict Resolution etc. Once the first part of the procedure will end, the Task Force will enter into the second part of the procedure.

Figure 6-1: Decision procedure to resolve boundary conflict in the current process

The second part of the procedure will begin with the selection of the conflicting case to be resolved. The case will be selected from the cases of interested LGUs who signed the MOA. Once the case is selected, the Task Force will start mediation between the parties. During mediation, the Task Force intends to use SMCE as a decision support method. After reaching an agreement, a MOA will be signed between the contenders to confirm. The update in the boundary will be made by the Task Force. As soon as the selected case is resolved, the Task Force will go for another case until all the identified cases are resolved.

The Task Force preliminary identified the unresolved case between La Trinidad and Tublay municipality as the first task. This case is selected as per the request of contenders to consider as a pilot case. Sooner the Task Force will start mediation between the parties. The following procedure seems appropriate because of the following reasons:


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o From figure 6-1, it can be said that the current decision procedure is simple and straight forward. I observed that the decision procedure used in the unresolved case was ambiguous on the one hand. On the other hand, the decision unit did not have proper knowledge about the decision procedure followed in the resolved case. The current procedure included a step (awareness building) which informs the contenders about the procedure towards solving the problem.

o The training steps will prepare the contenders about how to deal with the conflict resolution; what kind of preparation they need; how to treat the opposition etc. This will increase cohesiveness between the parties (impact of decision procedure upon decision unit). It will also make them confident about their decision (generation of ownership on the decision (Briggs, 2003)) and reliability upon the methods will be used. This step was missing in earlier procedures.

o The decision unit involved in conflict resolution in the legal process complained about funding limitation to conduct conflict resolution during interview with me. Lack of fund was also identified as a weakness in the past cases. The questionnaire survey also reveals this fact. The current procedure ensures the availability of fund because the interested LGUs are supposed to pay the cost of conflict resolution.

The current procedure also has the following weaknesses:

o Like the previous decision procedure in the resolved case, the current decision procedure also does not include the step of implementing the decision on the ground.

o The current procedure is not backed up by law. Hence, there would be complexity if one of the contenders disagree the agreement in future.

o The current procedure will not solve all the conflicts in the region unless all contending parties sign the MOA with the Task Force.

From the above discussion it can be said that the current decision procedure is an improvement but still there are scopes to further improvement.

6.2.2. Quality of the Decision Unit

Like the resolved case in chapter five, the structure of the decision unit is also a ‘coalition of autonomous actors’ in the current process. The Task Force and contending municipalities form the decision unit. The Task Force will play the role of what the Provincial Council played in the resolved case. The basic differences are the following:

o Considering the characteristics of ADR discussed in section 2.2.1, provincial Council played mostly as a facilitator role whereas the Task Force will participate as a mediator. Because of this nature of participation, the Task Force requires to have an adequate preparation in the mediation process which was lacking in the resolved case. Besides, out of 32 respondents, 71 percent respondent mentioned that mediation would be more helpful for them than facilitation.

o The boundary dispute committee in the Provincial Council was a political body which is found as a major weakness in the composition of the decision unit to resolve a conflict. The committee was scared about their political career. It felt that if one of the contenders considers the decision is not favourable, the committee would not get vote for the next election. On the other hand the Task Force is composed of technical personnel from technical organizations.


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This technical composition will diminish the identified weaknesses (see section 5.4) of the decision unit. Firstly, it is not subjected to political change due to election. Secondly, since no elected people are included in this task force, the contenders will feel free to cooperate. And thirdly, it will fulfil the absence of technical personnel in the decision unit.

o The resolved case became an ineffective decision because the decision unit did not inform the final decision to other relevant organizations about the decision. The organizations who were supposed to be informed by the decision unit to make necessary update in land area are now the members of this Task Force. Thus, the current composition of the decision unit reduces the procedural complexity (impact of decision unit on decision procedure or vice versa).

o The current decision unit does not have any prior experience of same kind of decision making at present. But unlike the cases in the provincial council, the Task Force will handle more cases (76 conflicts over the region assuming all cases to be solved) from two respects: Firstly, it will not change over time and secondly, it is working over a regional perspective than the Province. Hence, this unit has better possibility to gain knowledge and reapply it.

o During my fieldwork, I asked the personnel of the contending municipalities of the unresolved case about their opinion towards the Task Force in resolving their conflict. They showed much interest to cooperate.

Considering the above features it is fair to say that this decision unit is more capable of solving the problem.

6.2.3. Quality of the Decision Method (SMCE)

The decision unit is intended to apply Spatial Multi Criteria Evaluation (SMCE) to aid in dispute resolution in the current process. The plan to apply SMCE is a new idea of the current decision unit. The previous decision units did not think of it before. The essence of the method is its ability to show disputants quickly the effects of alternative proposals on their respective interest/criteria. The method can also show the effects of changing the criteria, their relative importance and the relations (criteria score) between alternatives and criteria. Showing those effects can facilitate arriving at dispute resolving compromises where all disputants come out ahead of their original best expectations, rather than merely ahead of their worst expectations. Perhaps the best way to resolve disputes is to try to find a new alternative that will please both sides in light of their differing weights, objectives, perceptions, constraints, or other inputs. The following subsections show how SMCE can facilitate mediation in the case boundary conflict resolution. An example is shown with the existing boundary dispute between La Trinidad and Tublay.

6.2.3.1. Generation of Alternative Boundary Options

When a decision process faces deadlock to reach an agreement, consideration of additional alternatives help the contenders to come up with consensus (Nagel and Mills, 1990). In order to demonstrate how SMCE evaluates the alternatives to arrive at a compromise solution in the selected case, different alternative boundaries were generated in chapter 3 (see from figure 3-14 to figure 3-18). The names of these alternatives are:

o Natural Boundary alternative, o Tax Line Boundary alternative; and o Highway Boundary alternative


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The natural boundary is derived following a creek in the conflicting area. The tax line boundary is derived from the tax payment map and the highway boundary is derived following the highway inside the conflicting area. The tax line alternative and the highway alternative are both further designed in two ways. Therefore, a total of five alternative boundaries are evaluated using the conflicting interests of each municipality. The details of each alternative were explained in section 3.3.3.1. The conflicting interests are identified in the following section.

6.2.3.2. Identification of Conflicting Interests (Criteria)

During my fieldwork, I identified the conflicting interests of each municipality (see also section 3.3.3.2). From my interview with the conflicting parties, I found that the contenders have different perceptions towards the conflicting area. They are very much interested to resolve the conflict if their interests are met.

Tublay municipality has the following interests according to their order of priority:

1. To increase municipal income: Tublay wants to have those parts of the conflicting area where the income generating activities are located. According to them, the activities are: residence, commerce or business and agriculture. These activities bring money to the municipality in a form of tax. The municipality also identified other sources of municipal income. These are IRA from population and IRA from land area. All the income generating criteria are summarized to represent the total municipal income as a single criterion (see figure 6-17) in ArcGIS environment.

2. To have area suitable for urban development: Tublay likes the parts of the conflicting area where there is a high potentiality for urban development. That means, it wants some parts of the conflicting area which are close to the existing road network and obey the zoning regulation. The conflicting area is divided into five zones: built up, built up brush land, agriculture, and grassland and pine forest. The municipality considered the built up area and the built up brush land as highly suitable for urban development.

3. Minimize social responsibility: The municipality not only wants to increase its income but also wants to reduce its expenditure. That is why; it wants to maximize the concentration of the population. Minimization of social responsibility can be realized by reducing the number of population to be served (a limited indicator for the criteria to be measured).

Unlike the municipality of Tublay, La Trinidad being a first class municipality has enough urbanized area. But the municipality has the following interests according to their order of priority.

1. To increase municipal area: La Trinidad currently has 8000 hectares of land area. The municipality is lacking 2000 hectares of land which is required to declare it as a component city. La Trinidad wishes to be a component city. A component city enjoys more taxing power than a municipality. That is why; the main objective of La Trinidad is to have this conflicting area so that it adds some area to reach its desired goal (2000 hectares approximately).

2. To increase municipal income: Like the interest of Tublay, La Trinidad is also interested to increase its income. It has also identified the same sources of earnings as Tublay did. So the same principle is followed for the generation of this criterion for La Trinidad as well.

The interests of both municipalities are represented spatially see section 3.3.3.2. The section also explains each of the criterions and how they are calculated. One criteria tree for Tublay (see figure 6-2) and one criteria tree for La Trinidad (see figure 6-3) were developed in SMCE representing the


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interests of each municipality. These criteria trees are used to evaluate each of the alternatives mentioned in the above section.

6.2.3.3. Importance of the Criteria (Weighting)

SMCE takes into account the preferences of the objectives/criteria by assigning different weights to the objectives and criteria. As mentioned earlier, the identified criteria are arranged based on the order of priority (ranking) of the contenders. In SMCE, Rank Order functionality is used to rank the criteria according to the order of priority of the contenders (see figures from 6-2 to 6-5 and the contenders’ priority). Given the ranking, SMCE translates the ordinal ranking into quantitative ranking using Expected Value Method (see Sharifi et al., 2004). These initial preferences are named as primary perspective for both municipalities. Later on (figure 6-4 and figure 6-5), equal weights are assigned to different objectives and criteria to observe the effect of such changes to the overall goal. The purpose of these changes is to explore how changes in perspective can lead to a compromise solution. The changed perspective is named as equal weight perspective. All the spatial criteria are prepared in ArcGIS environment and converted to ILWIS for SMCE.

Figure 6-2: Criteria tree representing the primary perspective of Tublay

Figure 6-3: Criteria tree representing the primary perspective of La Trinidad


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Figure 6-4: Criteria tree representing the equal weight perspective of Tublay

Figure 6-5: Criteria tree representing the equal weight perspective of La Trinidad

Figure 6-6: Standardization of ‘increase municipal area’ criterion for La Trinidad


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6.2.3.4. Standardization of the Criteria

All the criteria are represented spatially and the values (criteria score) are transferred to comparable units (standardized/normalized) called utility in a common scale from 0 to 1. Two types of standardization methods were used depending on the character of the criteria (for more information see (Sharifi et al., 2004)). These standardizations are: Maximum and Goal. For instance, goal standardization method is used for ‘increase municipal area’ criterion of La Trinidad because it has a goal to be a component city. For this reason La Trinidad requires 2000 hectares of land even though the total area of the conflicting site is 138 hectares. So, goal is set as 2000 hectares (see figure 6-6).

There could be an argument whether this standardization should be set between the existing area (8000 hectares) and the required area (10000 hectares) or between getting no area (0 hectare) and the total conflicting area (138 hectares). In this example it is not possible examine the first argument because of the limited geographical extent of the alternatives considered. The second argument could be examined in this example.

In maximum standardization, the standardized values are proportional to the original values. For instance, in case of benefit criteria, if municipal income increases twice, this is twice as good as the original income. Before the standardization, the criteria were divided into either a cost or a benefit criterion.

6.2.3.5. Evaluation of the Alternatives

The scores of the criteria are aggregated following the so called Path 2 approach (see figure 2-5). The weighted summation method (a compensatory approach) is used for the aggregation (see figure 6-7) of all criteria scores. This gives the utility of each pixel (10m pixel size is used) from the perspective of the contenders. Figure 6-8 and figure 6-9 show the spatial performance of each alternative based on the primary perspective of Tublay and La Trinidad respectively. By looking at the spatial pattern from the performance of each alternative one contender would be able to distinguish where his most interesting sites (pixel) are located and he would compete for that. But at some stage of the evaluation, the contenders would like to know how much they will gain or loose if they accept one alternative or not. So the contenders need insight into the sum of all the pixel values distributed over the alternative areas. SMCE also supports this aggregation. SMCE counts the value of each pixel in each alternative and sums (also average, minimum and maximum functionalities are available) the values. This summation provides the aggregated performance of each alternative. Figure 6-10, 6-11, 6-12 and 6-13 shows the sum of all pixels performance over the alternative areas from different perspectives of the two municipalities.


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Figure 6-7: Performance of criteria and objectives to reach goal spatially (Tublay primary perspective-the

Natural Boundary Alternative)

6.2.3.6. Analysis of the Evaluation Result

This section investigates the performances of the alternatives considered for the evaluation. By observing the spatial performances and the sum of all pixels performance, the following conclusion can be drawn.

Where are the preferred areas? In the case La Trinidad, the presence of red colour (see figure 6-9) all over the alternatives areas indicates that there is no specific zone that best suits the municipality’s requirement. It put too much emphasis on the increase of land area criteria, but with respect to its goal the conflicting area is very much insignificant. Thus, when the criterion is standardized, it brings very little utility (see figure 6-6) for the municipality which is not very much compensated by the score of the other criterion because it has very little weight. That is why; the aggregated utility is also very poor for the municipality of La Trinidad. On the other hand, there is a presence of well performed areas in the case of Tublay (see figure 6-8, encircled) that can meet its utility. The main reason is that it has several criteria which scored fairly good and compensated for the poorly performed criteria. The higher overall score for Tublay indicates that the conflicting area can serve better utility for Tublay than La Trinidad.


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Figure 6-8: Spatial evaluation of the alternatives for Tublay (primary perspective)


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Figure 6-9: Spatial evaluation of the alternatives for La Trinidad (primary perspective)

Figure 6-10: Aggregated performance of different alternatives based on Tublay primary perspective

Figure 6-11: Aggregated performance of different alternatives based on La Trinidad primary perspective


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Figure 6-12: Aggregated performance of different

alternatives based on Tublay equal weight perspective

Figure 6-13: Aggregated performance of different

alternatives based on La Trinidad equal weight perspective

Table 6.1: Summarized table generated from SMCE can facilitate decision making Primary perspective Equal Weight Perspective Alternatives Tublay La Trinidad Tublay La Trinidad

Conflicting area (Total)

4,171 691 7,711 426

Highway B Rank 1 (2,791)

Rank 5 (100)

Rank 1 (5,101)

Rank 5 (55)

Highway A

Rank 5 (1,394)

Rank 1 (273)

Rank 5 (2,637)

Rank 1 (188)

Tax Line A

Rank 4 (1,421)

Rank 2 (265)

Rank 4 (2,886)

Rank 2 (182)

Tax Line B

Rank 2 (2,734)

Rank 4 (103)

Rank 2 (5,004)

Rank 4 (57)

Natural

Rank 3 (1,845)

Rank 3 (224)

Rank 3 (3,450)

Rank 3 (154)


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Why changes in weight increase the utility for Tublay but decrease for La Trinidad? When equal weight is assigned, it decreases the weight of the criteria ‘increase municipal income’ for Tublay but increases the weight for the same criteria for La Trinidad. This means, income generating activities are either not many or don’t make significant income inside the conflicting area. That is why, decreasing the weight of this criteria helps to gain more from other criteria. Similarly, increasing the weight of this criterion does not gain as much as the loss from the other criteria.

Why the best alternative is best in every perspective? Table 6.1 shows that either the Highway Alternative B for Tublay or the Highway Alternative A for La Trinidad performs the best. From figure 6-8 and 6-9; it is clear that both alternatives represent the same geographical area. It means most of the benefit criteria are located in this area. But Natural Boundary Alternative divides this area almost equally and hence ranks equally from the perspective of both municipalities.

6.2.3.7. Supporting the Mediation

The purpose of the SMCE is not to decide. At the end, it is the contenders/decision makers who will decide. But SMCE helps the decision makers to make more sense out of their decision especially when they feel that they have something to evaluate. It helps to analyze the relevance of some of their interests. SMCE provides a background for the decision maker to make a rational decision. Decision maker would be able to distinguish how much he will gain/loose for choosing one alternative and giving up the others. Again, when the decision unit is a ‘coalition of autonomous actors’, there should be a decision rule e.g. majority rule, unanimity rule, voting etc. to decide (see section 2.2.2). Otherwise conflict resolution would end with deadlock (Hermann, 2001). SMCE produces the credentials of the alternatives for making a choice.

However, if the decision rules support that the common ranking alternative should be selected, then the contenders will find a clear winner –the natural boundary (table 6.1). Since there is no alternative that performs best in all instances in this example, the natural alternative could be a compromise solution. The reasons for this selection would be:

o The natural boundary alternative is not the worst performing alternative for both municipalities

o La Trinidad would be happy because it gives a slightly lower utility from its best result

There could be a number of reasons for the selection/rejection of this alternative as a compromise solution. The purpose of this example is not to discuss all the reasons. The aim of this example is to show how SMCE can help making a rational decision. One lesson can be learned from the above example is that there is a need to develop and explore more alternatives that can meet the requirements of the contenders.

6.2.3.8. Qualifying SMCE

I had introduced the working principle of SMCE with an example during my interviews with the contenders. I had also asked them about the understandability and reliability of the method. In the light of the above general principles with specific examples and the feedback from my interview, I can conclude that SMCE can help facilitate mediation because of the following reasons:

o As a method, SMCE is successfully applied in different decision making problem e.g. risk analysis, suitability analysis, land use planning, water management (Dai et al., 2001; Ceballos-Silva and Lopez-Blanco, 2003; Simon et al., 2004; Makropoulos and Butler, 2006) etc. The


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authors claimed it as a sound method. It allows representing the decision maker’s goals, objectives, and preferences etc. for the evaluation. Interestingly, introduction of SMCE helps the contenders to think about their problems deeply. During my interview, I found that at the beginning of my interview, the contenders were only interested about IRA. But after my explanation of SMCE the contenders made a substantial effort to structure their perception or representation of the problem. This effort is beneficial as it forces the decision unit to think harder and deeper about its problem rather than just about their position. Thus SMCE qualifies the requirement of making use of objective criteria for the evaluation of the decision method quality (see figure 2-6). This was one of the weaknesses of the method used in the resolved case.

o SMCE will produce a subrational (see section 1.6) decision as it calculates the contender’s welfare effectively and logically based on what the decision unit feels. It fulfils the notion of both the communicative and the instrumental rationality (see section 2.2) as a method. SMCE provides unambiguous representations of a given problem; it offers a common language for communicating about the problem and it evaluates the interests of the contenders. Once SMCE has been established, hundreds of what-if questions can be answered with a little effort (above example). This can be of great help for devising a concurrence solution (see section 2.3). In the above example, from table 6.1, it is clear that the Natural Boundary alternative would not be a concurrence solution but a compromise solution. Even though the ranking of the Natural Boundary is not the best one but the worst one neither. SMCE allows evaluating other alternatives that are not considered in this example which could lead to a concurrence result. If the contenders consider Natural Boundary as a compromise solution, every party will come out ahead of their worst expectations. SMCE operation is also carried out in this case using the available resources (e.g. available data is used). Thus this method meets the requirement of both technical and organizational capability criteria for the quality of a decision method.

o After analysis of the questionnaire it was found that around 80% respondents (of a sample size 32) believe that maps are essential to solve boundary problem. SMCE uses maps as input and also produces both maps and numbers as output. After explanation of SMCE, around 75% respondents (from the same sample) feel that SMCE would be helpful to solve the problem. The contenders understand the working concept of SMCE and believe in the output. This interview was carried out prior to hands on training on SMCE. After completion of training step in the procedure will make the contenders more confident about SMCE. Also the organizations involved in the task force are capable of handling the technicality of SMCE. They have GIS background and some of the organizations are currently working with GIS (e.g. NAMRIA, TWG of GIS Network etc.). Thus it satisfies the organizational capability criteria.

o SMCE makes the procedure more comprehensive and straightforward. The ‘mediation’ step in the current procedure is same as the ‘amicable settlement’ step of the legal procedure (see figure 4-4 and figure 6-1). The resolved case used the legal procedure. During the amicable settlement in the resolved case, people were uncertain what to do because the procedure did not specify what to do in the ‘amicable settlement’ step. The same would happen in the current procedure. But introduction of SMCE added three more steps (see figure 6-1) inside the step of ‘mediation’ in the current procedure. These additional steps will guide the decision unit what to do. The quality of the method enhances the quality of the procedure.


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6.3. Discussion

This section discusses some of the topics that are observed during this evaluation. It primarily investigates the case discussed above where SMCE has been applied. The discussion extends some of the identified issues in other chapters. It leads to conclude some of the difficulties that SMCE might face in its application to resolve boundary conflict.

Nature of decision problem is a deciding factor to choose method From the analysis of the decision problems in chapter five, it is clear that there are two types of decision problem. Firstly, where to locate the Municipal Boundary Monument (MBM)? And secondly, how to delineate a boundary line between the monuments in a conflicting area? Considering the nature of decision support that SMCE provides, it is difficult to apply SMCE in the first decision problem. Rather the participatory 3 dimensional modelling (P3DM) (see section 2.2.3.1) has been successfully applied to identify MBM to resolve this problem. Therefore, SMCE would be applicable to resolve the second problem as I showed in my example.

Nature of conflict also a deciding factor to choose decision method There are two conflicting areas between La Trinidad and Tublay municipalities: disputed case east and disputed case west (figure 6-14). But there was never any discussion to resolve the disputed case west. When I asked the contenders about this case, they replied that they only want to divide the area by half because of IRA. There are not many things located inside this conflicting area that interests them other than IRA from Land. Since there is no multiple conflicting interests present in this area from the perspective of both municipalities, it means it is a single criterion interest.

It is possible to analyze the both conflicting areas together in SMCE. This analysis may lead to a concurrence solution (lacking in the given example) on the one hand. On the other hand, it could lead to complexity in solving the problem because of two reasons. Firstly, this case is rather simple; there are other cases where several conflicting sites exist for one municipality with different municipalities (figure 3-3 and figure 7-1). Solving problem like this need to consider all conflicting sites together and requires the analysis of trade-off among the sites. And secondly, the task force’s intention is to solve the conflict case by case. Consideration of two cases together goes against the mandate of the task force.

Figure 6-14: Disputed cases between La Trinidad and Tublay municipalities


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Again, there are some cases where multiple conflicting interests exist but indicators used to represent those interests are the same, in which case a single criterion approach can be followed. When the conflicting interest is about a single criterion, every party wants to have an equal share because there is nothing to trade-off (it might be that at that stage one party will get one of their ‘hidden’ criteria explicit- to avoid a paralysation of the process; in which case it would become a multi criteria evaluation). Hence there is a requirement to evaluate more alternatives so that it is possible to arrive at an alternative that divides the interest equally. In such circumstances, application of a Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation would be more meaningful. The benefit of applying this method is that the contenders would be able to see the real value (e.g. money) not the ‘utility’ as an abstract figure. It is also possible to evaluate different alternatives just in a single click in this method.

An example of Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation is developed to demonstrate how it works in ArcGIS environment. A model has been developed (see figure 6-15) in ArcGIS ModelBuilder to evaluate different alternatives. The same alternatives are used in this example as used in the previous example but only the municipal income criterion is used. When the model runs, there is only need to change the alternative in ModelBuilder interface (see figure 6-16) to evaluate. The model produces a composite map (see figure 6-17) representing the spatial assessment and a table (see table 6.2) representing the total value (in this case peso) of the selected alternative as outputs.

Figure 6-15: Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation model in ModelBuilder


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Figure 6-16: Interface of Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation model

Figure 6-17: Output as a map of Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation method


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Table 6.2: Output as table after evaluation of different alternatives Alternative NAME No of pixel AREA (m2) La Trinidad (pesos) Tublay (pesos) Difference (pesos) Whole area 13,890 1,389,000 357,623 357,623 0 Highway A 8,883 888,300 231,098 126,106 104,992 Highway B 4,912 491,200 126,106 231,098 -104,992 Tax Line A 8,787 878,700 199,663 157,544 42,119 Tax Line B 5,009 500,900 157,544 199,663 -42,119 Natural Boundary 6,404 640,400 162,438 195,186 -32,748

From table 6.2, it is clear that there is not a single alternative boundary line considered for evaluation that divides the conflicting area equally. So there is a need to generate more alternatives to evaluate. But Natural Boundary alternative performs better than other alternatives because the income difference is minimal between the contending municipalities.

How much SMCE can support for the resolution of cultural boundary dispute? In section 4.1.5, I showed that one of the main sources of boundary conflict is the presence of cultural boundary (indigenous people’s boundary) that intersects with the political boundary (see figure 6-18 as a hypothetical example). The indigenous people didn’t accept the bisection of their homogeneity. Existing literature also highlights the necessity of maintaining homogeneity during the demarcation of political boundary (see table 2.1). In such a situation, not only SMCE but also other methods will not be able to support a satisfycing decision in what so ever ways it splits the area. Splitting the cultural area would not be an acceptable solution rather giving the cultural area to one municipality could be a solution if:

o SMCE can evaluates the total utility of the cultural area; and o Explore the same utility in other places that can satisfy the sacrificed municipality

Figure 6-18: Political boundary bisects the cultural boundary (hypothetical example)

Does the current decision process is a holistic process? The aim of the current decision making process is to develop a holistic procedure that can solve the boundary conflicts over the region. The current procedure is not a holistic procedure because of the following reasons:

o The procedure identified the interested municipalities who are supposed to pay the procedural cost. For this reason, a MOA also has been signed between the task force and the contending

Municipality B

Indigenous people’s area

Municipality A


94

municipalities. But not all conflicting municipalities signed the MOA. Complexity would arise if one municipality signed the MOA but the contenders not.

o The general orientation was conducted for the CAR region. Only the LCEs of CAR attended the general orientation. There was no participation of LGUs from other regions. It is found that CAR has conflict with Region I and Region II (see table 4.1). The task force will only train the signed municipalities. Not municipality from the other regions will be trained. Thus, there would a difference in the quality of the contenders and also how the task force will coordinate with the municipalities from the other regions is also not clarified in the current procedure.

o Several organizations form the current decision unit. When multiple organizations are involved in decision making, coordination problem may occur. This problem is already evident between two organizations: LMS vs. NAMRIA. LMS is responsible for the political boundary survey by law (see section 4.3.2). On the other hand, NAMRIA showed the same interest (see section 6.1). At present the organization responsibility for each organization is not clearly defined.

o The task force is intended to resolve the conflict case by case. There are 76 conflicting cases over the region. If the task force takes six month time to resolve one conflict, it would take 37 years to resolve all the conflicts over the region. That means the status quo will sustain another 37 years for the last municipality to be resolved. In my view, the task force should adopt a different strategy in this respect.


95

7. Conclusions and Recommendations

Resolution decision of the boundary dispute between Kapangan and Tublay municipality was the first ever made demarcation decision by the provincial council since its creation in 1966. Whereas, no decision reach yet in spite of several attempts to resolve the boundary conflict between the municipality of Tublay and La Trinidad. The former case is referred as resolved case and the later case is referred as unresolved case. A new decision process is currently being deployed to resolve the conflict of the unresolved case. This case is referred as current case. This research aims to evaluate decision quality. It qualifies the decisions in the resolved and the unresolved cases, identifies and analyzes the weaknesses of the decisions; and also qualifies the decision making process of the current case in the light of past decisions. A framework is developed for the evaluation (see figure 2-6). The framework breaks down the decision process into three decision making variables: decision procedure, decision unit and decision method. During the evaluation of the current case particular emphasis is placed on SMCE to explore whether the decision quality will be enhanced. This chapter concludes the findings of this research by referring back to the research objectives and research questions. To bridge the weaknesses of this research the chapter also recommends for further research.

7.1. Conclusion

Although initially Local Government Unit (LGU) considers boundary conflicts to be caused by factual disagreement, eventually they appear to be caused by conflicting goals.

A conflict can start either from factual disagreement, or from conflicting goals, or from relationship, or any combination of those (Mostert, 1998) (see figure 2-1). In most cases, the political boundary is described in a narrative way (without any map or geographic coordinate) referring to the visible land mark. The adjacent LGUs denoted the referred landmark differently with the intention to increase the land area. There are two different goals for this attempt to increase land area (see figure 4-2).

Firstly, more land area means more money for the LGUs from the central government in a form of Internal Revenue allotment (IRA). And secondly, the LGUs wanted to have more land because of the resources that the land possesses. These resources are mostly aerial/spatial in nature e.g. residence, commerce, agriculture etc.

The disagreed boundary is called boundary conflict and the extent of area that the parties disagree is referred as status quo area. Status quo is detrimental for the socio-economic development of the LGUs but a good decision can resolve the problem.


96

Legal decision process is partially defined; Local Government Code (LGC) needs to clarify what to do with decision methods.

LGC serves so far as a legal guideline to resolve the boundary conflict. It pointed out a legal process for the boundary conflict resolution. The process consists of decision procedure and decision unit. It also highlights the necessity of amicable settlement for boundary conflict.

Although the procedure is clear and straight forward, it has weaknesses as well. Firstly, it has a step called ‘amicable settlement’ (see figure 4-4). For an amicable settlement the contenders need a decision method. But the method is not specified in the legal process and people struggled to follow the step. There could be an argument whether it should specify a method or not because a specific method may not fit in all circumstances. Nevertheless, it should at least point out who will choose the method at what stage of that step.

The choice of a decision method does not matter too much to resolve the boundary conflict but the procedure does.

Evaluation of the resolved and unresolved cases shows that if a decision unit poses good attitude to resolve a boundary conflict, it is necessary to have a good decision procedure than a technically good method. The unresolved case attempted to adopt a technically good method (Multi Criteria Evaluation) but failed to reach a decision because of its procedural weaknesses (see figure 5-4). On the other hand, the resolved case followed a consistent procedure (see figure 5-3) but adopted a less technically qualified method (Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation) and it resolved.

A decision unit can simplify its conflicting interests from multi criteria to a single criterion to resolve a conflict.

Several conflicting interests (IRA, communal forests, taxes, rice terraces etc) were discussed to be considered for the decision making in the resolved case during the hearing of the case. The decision unit simplified its conflicting interests to a single criterion at the end and adopted Tax Line boundary as the final decision (see figure 5-5). The goodness of the decision procedure and the goodness of the unit compensated the weaknesses of the decision method in this case.

A decision process will enhance the quality of decision making if it overcomes the following weaknesses.

The following weaknesses are identified during the evaluation of the decisions in the resolved and the unresolved cases. If a decision process can overcome these weaknesses, it will enhance the decision quality.

i. Faulty procedure

In the resolved case, ‘amicable settlement’ steps took more than a year because the followed (legal) procedure did not specify what to do during the ‘amicable settlement’. There is emptiness in that step. There should have been a methodological procedure in this step of the procedure. The followed procedure failed to inform other relevant organizations of the decisions through proper channels to make the decision officially confirmed in the resolved case. This step was missing in the followed procedure.


97

ii. Mainly the decision unit keeps sustaining the problem

The decision unit keeps sustaining the problem. In both cases, the structure of the decision unit was composed of politicians. The units were more concerned about their political career than the conflict resolution. Decision making is considered as detriment to the political career of the decision unit and as such the unit don’t want to receive any blame from the people because of a decision. Thus the unit wishes to have a permanent technical organization than can look after the boundary conflict issue.

iii. Decision Method: Trade-off between Technical quality vs. Organizational capability

The method is traded-off between organizational capability and technical quality. The method used in the resolved case did not reflect the contenders’ interests properly. Several conflicting issues (e.g. IRA, agriculture, community forest etc) were discussed during the hearing of conflict resolution, but the selected method did not consider those issues. Organizational capability is found as a major weakness in the unresolved case. The unit attempted to adopt a sophisticated method, but there were no expertise to handle the intended method.

SMCE will enhance the decision quality because the current decision process overcomes the identified weaknesses of the earlier decisions

The following changes in the decision variables of the current decision process make the process more functional and practical for SMCE.

Firstly, SMCE has its own procedural steps. These added steps will overcome the confusion generated with the so called “amicable settlement” step. The “amicable settlement” step is referred as “mediation” step in the current decision procedure (see figure 4-4 and 6-1). Besides, the involvement of a task force as a decision unit reduces the procedural complexity. Several organizations who are supposed to be informed to confirm the decision are now part of the task force.

Secondly, the task force in the current process is not composed of politician rather technical personnel. It is permanent and is not subject to change due to election.

Thirdly, SMCE is qualified as a good method in the current decision process because of the following reasons:

o Representation and the evaluation of the contenders’ goal and preference are identified as a weakness of the earlier methods. The example of SMCE in chapter six shows that it is one of the major strength of SMCE.

o The organizational capability is enhanced because of the involvement of the task force. The task force is capable to handle the functionality of SMCE. Organizational capability was lacking in the unresolved case.

o The contenders are interested about SMCE because it helps them to think of their problem harder and deeper. It also helps them to structure their problem and making sense out of their decision. The task force is intended to train the contenders about SMCE. This will enhance the contenders’ reliability of the method.

o The SMCE example in chapter six proves that it can enhance collaboration among the contenders. The outcome of SMCE will provide a basis for the choice of alternative.


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Nature of decision problem and type of conflicting interests can limit the appropriateness of SMCE

Trade-off analysis among the criteria is an art of SMCE. When the conflicting interest is about a single criterion, every party wants to have an equal share because there is nothing to trade-off. During the identification of the conflicting interests of the contenders, it is found that in some situation the contenders’ interests are single criterion. Also, a decision unit can simplify its decision problem from multi criteria to a single criterion like the resolved case. Hence, a single criterion evaluation would be more effective (shown as an example in chapter six) than SMCE.

Again, the cases where there is a need to make decisions for both locating boundary monuments and delineating boundary lines between the monuments, SMCE is not helpful for locating the monuments. Other method like Participatory 3 Dimensional Modelling is proven to be a successful method in this circumstance.

Consideration of alternative options can foster the resolution process

Both in the resolved case and in the current case of my SMCE example, it is proved to reach an agreement, consideration of additional alternatives help the contenders to come up with consensus. The resolved case followed Spatial Single Criterion Evaluation (SSCE) and the current is exampled with SMCE. So, it does not matter which decision method but additional alternative can foster the resolution process.

7.2. Recommendation for Further Research

During the research progress, I felt that some of the following topics need further investigations in the context of decision quality evaluation.

Aggregation of decision quality to a higher level The aim of the current research was to find out the strengths and weaknesses of decisions. That is why I evaluated the quality of individual component (criteria used for evaluation- see table 5.5) of the decision variables. But one could be interested to know the overall quality of the decisions. In order to aggregate the decision quality to a higher level, it is necessary to know the importance of each criterion. Again, not all the criteria are factors, some of those are constraints. Thus it is necessary to identify the factors and constraints among the criteria. For instance, communication with relevant organizations is found one of the major weaknesses for procedural criteria in the resolved case which made the decision ineffective. Is it possible to compensate this criterion by improving the quality of other criteria used? If not then it is a constraint. Thus, to identify the constraints and the factors and finding the real importance of each factor is important for the aggregation of decision quality to a higher level.

Trade-off analysis among the decision variables During my evaluation of the decision quality, I mentioned several times that the quality of one decision variable has impacts on the quality of other decision variables (see sections 6.2.1, 6.2.2 and 6.2.3). For instances, SMCE as a method can improve the quality of the decision procedure. Thus it is necessary to investigate how much the quality of one variable has the impact on the quality of other variable. Or in other way around, is it possible to have same quality of a decision making by improving the quality of one variable and decreasing the quality of other variables?


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This recommended research also can include a missing element of the current research. In my model in figure 1-2, I showed that there are three bi-lateral interactions between the decision variables. Those interactions are not investigated properly in the current research.

Will SMCE holds under more complex condition? Complexity in conflict resolution would occur in different ways. In chapter four, I mentioned that complexity may arise in the resolution of a conflict when a boundary of a municipality shapes the boundary of a province or a region. In addition of this complexity, there would be other kind of complexity. Figure 7-1 is drawn using the figure I provided in chapter three (figure 3-3) but showing the consideration of complexity for conflict resolution. Conflict can be resolved just case by case. But considering the time requirement to resolve all the conflicts of CAR, the task force may become interested to resolve the conflicts in a group. This grouping can be done in different ways (see figure 7-1). The variation of colour (from blue to red) of the boxes in figure 7-1 represents the different level of complexity. Will SMCE hold in supporting such a decision making where the parties would be interested to see the total final status of aggregation from the trade-of among the sites with different municipalities?

Figure 7-1: Complexity diagram for conflict resolution


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8. References

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9. Appendices

Appendix-1: List of conflicting municipalties in CAR LIST OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNITS WITH

POLITICAL BOUNDARY CONFLICT AS OF JUNE 30, 2006

LOCAL GOVERNMENT LGU IN CONFLICT AREA OF STATUS OF UNIT (LGU) WITH CONFLICT CONFLICT REMARKS

(Municipality-Province)

(Hectares)

PROVINCE OF ABRA BAAY-LICUAN Approved BANGUED

Unapproved

BOLINEY Tubo, Abra 1,655.4340 Approved Manabo, Abra no data Resolution started BUCAY Approved BUCLOC Approved DAGUIOMAN Sallapadan, Abra 568.6580 Status Quo Approved DANGLAS Approved DOLORES Approved LA PAZ Approved LACUB Unsurveyed

LAGANGILANG Unapproved

LAGAYAN Approved LANGIDEN Approved LUBA San Emilio, Ilocos

Sur no data Resolution being

initiated by San Emilio, Ilocos, Sur.

Approved

MALIBCONG Unsurveyed

MANABO Boliney, Abra no data Resolution started Approved PEÑARUBIA

Bangued, Abra 6.7269 Status Quo

Approved

Bucay, Abra 5.5831 PILAR Approved PIDIGAN

San Isidro, Abra 128.9005 Status Quo

Approved

Ilocos Sur 69.5012 SALLAPADAN Bucloc, Abra 49.2151 Status Quo Approved


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Daguioman, Abra 27.0801 SAN ISIDRO Approved SAN JUAN Approved SAN QUINTIN Approved TAYUM No record

on file. TINEG Unsurveyed

TUBO

San Emilio, Ilocos Sur

no data Resolution being initiated by San Emilio, Ilocos, Sur.

Unsurveyed

Sadanga, Mt. Province

no data Resolution included in the survey of Sadanga

VILLAVICIOSA Approved PROVINCE OF APAYAO CALANASAN

Vintar, Ilocos, Norte 948.5043 Status Quo Approved

Adams, Ilocos Norte 844.6670 Dumanlog, Ilocos

Norte 511.2898

CONNER Approved FLORA Allacapan, Cagayan no data Status Quo Unsurveyed

KABUGAO

Conner, Apayao 6,599.8782 Status Quo

Approved

Calanasan, Apayao 18,630.7756 LUNA Calanasan, Apayao 15,468.9793 Resolution being

initiated by Calanasan

Approved

PUDTOL Luna, Apayao 1,999.0690 Status Quo Approved STA. MARCELA Approved PROVINCE OF BENGUET ATOK Kibungan, Benguet 814.8900 Status Quo Approved BAKUN Kibungan, Benguet 1,077.5200 Status Quo Approved Sugpon, Ilocos Sur no data Resolution started BOKOD

Itogon, Benguet 3,050.1700 Resolution started Approved

Atok, Benguet 2,786.9100 Status Quo Kabayan, Benguet 1,541.5800 Resolution started Itogon (Bobok),

Benguet 7,185.2600 Resolution started

Tublay, Benguet 808.7000 Resolution started BUGUIAS Kibungan, Benguet 64.0100 Status Quo Approved ITOGON Tuba, Benguet no data Resolution started Approved


109

KABAYAN Atok, Benguet 1,554.9400 Status Quo Approved KAPANGAN

Atok, Benguet 40.5700 Status Quo

Approved

Kibungan, Benguet 568.9700 Tublay, Benguet 168.1400 KIBUNGAN Sugpon, Ilocos Sur no data Resolution started Approved LA TRINIDAD Sablan, Benguet

534.1900

Status Quo Approved

Tublay, Benguet 46.4200 MANKAYAN Buguias, Benguet 106.7800 Approved Tadian, Mt. Province no data Resolution started

Buguias, Benguet 311.2400 SABLAN Tuba, Benguet 119.0400 Resolved by Court Approved TUBA

Sison, Pangasinan no data Resolution started Unapproved

Pugo, La Union no data Resolution started TUBLAY La Trinidad, Benguet 200.3500 Status Quo Approved PROVINCE OF KALINGA BALBALAN Approved LUBUAGAN Unsurveyed

PASIL

Unsurveyed

PINUKPUK

Conner, Apayao 12,240.9244 Approved

Tuao, Cagayan 2,636.3311 Status Quo Tabuk, Kalinga 596.6566 Balbalan, Kalinga 3,108.7317 RIZAL Unapprove

d TABUK

Paracelis, Mt. Province

3,856.1400 Approved

Tanudan, Kalinga 1,497.2500 Pasil, Kalinga 1,584.4100 Balbalan, Kalinga 510.8100 Pinukpuk, Kalinga 4,966.1200 Mallig, Isabela no data Resolution started TANUDAN Approved TINGLAYAN Unsurveyed


110

PROVINCE OF IFUGAO AGUINALDO Mayoyao, Ifugao no data Resolution started Approved ASIPULO

Kiangan, Ifugao 175.4222

Approved

Ambaguio, Vizcaya 7,632.2513 Status Quo Villaverde, Vizcaya 2,109.5341 BANAUE Hungduan, Ifugao 979.0000 Status Quo Approved Hingyon, Ifugao 979.0000 HINGYON Approved HUNGDUAN Unsurveyed

KIANGAN Unapproved

LAGAWE Approved LAMUT Approved MAYOYAO Unapprove

d POTIA(Alfonso Lista) Ramon, Isabela no data Resolution started Approved TINOC UnsurveyedMT. PROVINCE BARLIG

Bontoc, Mt. Province 471.0000

Approved

Mayoyao, Ifugao 3,167.0000 Tanudan, kalinga 448.0000 Status Quo Banaue, Ifugao 1,482.0000 Natonin, Mt. Province 5,555.0000 Sadanga, Mt.

Province 1,612.0000 Resolution started

BAUKO Approved BESAO Unsurveyed

BONTOC Sadanga, Mt. Province

343.7567 Resolution started Unapproved

NATONIN Approved PARACELIS Approved SABANGAN

Hungduan, Ifugao no data Resolution started Approved

Bontoc, Mt. Province no data Status Quo SADANGA Unsurveyed

SAGADA Unapproved

TADIAN Cervantes, Ilocos Sur no data Resolution started Approved Prepared by: Checked by:

JOSEPH A. DILEM BENJAMIN A. VENTURA OIC, Aggregate Surveys Section Chief, Regional Surveys Division

NOTED: VICTOR M. COSALAN, CESO IV Regional Technical Director


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Appendix-2: Interview Questionnaire

Questionnaire for NEDA-CAR 1. Please could you tell me about the boundary conflict resolution in the region? 2. Could you kindly tell me about your involvement in the boundary conflict resolution in the

region? 3. Is this part of your regular tasks? Have you had experience with it before? 4. Do you think boundary conflict is a problem? If yes, could you kindly tell me the causes you

feel for this problem? 5. Please could you describe the procedure of boundary conflict resolution? Has this procedure

changed over time? How you are intended to solve the problem? 6. Who are the major parties involved? Why are they important? What is their role? 7. Why you think SMCE could play a role in solving the problem of boundary conflict? Do you

see any obstacles in applying this method? Do you think all the people you mentioned above are concerned about SMCE?

8. If there are obstacles; how you will address theses? 9. How you are going to introduce the SMCE method? 10. Do you have any mandate regarding time to solve the problem? 11. How long you need to make the stakeholder understand about SMCE? 12. Do you have any GIS department in your organization? If yes, how many staffs do you have?

What about the data availability?

Questionnaire for the Provincial Council of Benguet 1. Please could you tell me about the boundary conflict resolution in this province? 2. Please could you tell me about the role of your organization in boundary conflict resolution? 3. Have you ever solved any boundary conflict? 4. Who made the decision: provincial council as a form of certification or the parties themselves? 5. What kind of difficulty usually the parties face when they try to negotiate? 6. If the parties failed, then how did you decide and based on which information? 7. What kind of problem generally you faced when you make a decision? 8. What is usually written in the certificate? 9. How many petition generally you receive each year? 10. Have you ever received any petition from the municipality of La Trinidad? 11. What is your opinion about the initiative of the Task Force?

Questionnaire for LMS 1. Please could you tell me about the boundary conflict in this region? 2. Could you kindly tell me about the causes of boundary conflict in this region? 3. What is your opinion about the NAMRIA map and the LMS map? 4. Could you kindly explain a bit about the political boundary survey procedure? 5. Do you think this problem should be solved? 6. What would be the benefit of your organizations if this problem is solved? 7. RDC is trying to solve this problem and considered you as important party to solve the

problem. If RDC asked your opinion what would you say regarding solving the boundary problem?


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8. The Task Force is trying to solve the boundary conflict for the whole region using SMCE, what is your opinion about its initiative? Do you have any experience with GIS, SMCE?

9. Explanation of SMCE: Do you understand the working principle of SMCE? Do you believe its result? How this procedure can be improved? Do you think it would be helpful for every municipality to understand the problem and solve the problem

10. Do you have any GIS department in your organization? If yes, how many staffs do you have? What about the data availability?

11. Since you are experienced of earlier demarcation, I am sure you have some suggestions to be considered to solve the problem. I would appreciate your suggestions.

Questionnaire for NSO 1. Could you kindly tell me something about boundary conflict in this region? 2. Have you heard about the initiative of RDC? Do you think this problem should be solved?

Why it should be solved? 3. Because of this problem, do your organization facing any trouble? If yes, what kind of

difficulty? 4. If this problem is solved, what would be the benefit of your organization? 5. RDC is trying to solve this problem and considered you as important party to solve the

problem. If RDC asked your opinion what would you say regarding solving the boundary problem?

6. The Task Force is trying to solve the boundary conflict for the whole region using SMCE, what is your opinion about its initiative? Do you have any experience with GIS, SMCE?

7. Explanation of SMCE: Do you understand the working principle of SMCE? Do you believe its result? How this procedure can be improved? Do you think it would be helpful for every municipality to understand the problem and solve the problem

8. Do you have any GIS department in your organization? If yes, how many staffs do you have? What about the data availability?

9. What are your suggestions to me to solve the problem? I would appreciate your suggestions.

Questionnaire for the municipality of La Trinidad and Tublay 1. Could you kindly tell me about the boundary conflict of your municipality? 2. When and how your municipality first realized the boundary problem? 3. In your opinion, what is the main cause of this problem? 4. What kind of initiatives so far you/others have taken to solve the problem?

a. Initiative 1:………………………………………………… b. Time:………………………………………………. c. Who took the initiative:…………………………… d. Conflict between:…………………………………. e. How it was initiated:……………………………… f. Who were involved:……………………………….. g. Initiative 2:………………………………………………… h. Initiative 3:…………………………………………………

5. In spite of taking all those initiatives, the problem still persisting, could you tell me why? 6. Why do you think that the boundary is not in proper position? 7. If the boundary is changed according to your wish, what kind of benefit you think you will

gain in your municipality?


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8. What are the things you feel important for your municipality inside the conflicting areas? Why? Please lists according to your preference.

a. Agricultural Land:………………………………………………………… b. Historic sites:……………………………………………………………… c. River/Pond/Hill:…………………………………………………………... d. Settlement:………………………………………………………………... e. Others, please specify:……………………………………………………

9. RDC is trying to solve the boundary conflict for the whole region including your municipality using SMCE, what is your opinion about their initiative?

10. Have you any GIS department in your organizations? If yes, please answer the following: a. Number of Staffs:………………………………. b. Availability of data:…………………………….

11. Below is showing an example of how SMCE works to solve the boundary conflict. I am explaining you now how it works. Do you think, it is a good approach in terms of:

a. You understand the method b. You believe the result c. You think would be helpful for every municipality to understand the problem and

solve the problem d. From your previous experience, what would be your suggestions this time to deal with the

problem?

Questionnaire for the Barangay of Shilan 1. Could you kindly tell me about the boundary conflict between La Trinidad and Tublay? 2. What kind of problem you facing because of this boundary conflict? 3. What kind of initiative so far you have taken to resolve the conflict? 4. What is the opinion of the local people residing inside the conflicting area?


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Appendix-3: The persons interviewed and the type of information gathered. Name Designation & Organization Usefulness for the thesis Gina Gacusan Economic Development

Specialist NEDA-CAR

-Involvement of NEDA in Boundary Conflict -Identification of Stakeholders -Intention to solve the problem in changing process

Crescencio C. Pacalso Chairman, Boundary Dispute Committee, Provincial Council (PC), Benguet Province Vice Governor, Benguet Province

-Boundary conflict resolution process -Problems of resolution -Commitment of PC -Attitude of the parties during negotiation -Opinion of PC regarding the initiative of RDC

Attorney Noel Sabog Secretary, Boundary Dispute Committee, PC, Benguet Province

-Boundary conflict resolution process -Problems of resolution -Commitment of PC -Attitude of the parties during negotiation -Opinion of PC regarding the initiative of RDC

Benjamin A. Ventura Chief, Regional Surveys Division LMS, DENR-CAR

-Problems of political boundary demarcation -Reasons for not having exact boundary -Overview of conflicts -Applicability of SMCE -Opinion regarding the initiative of RDC

Adrian A. Cerezo Statistician II, National Statistics Office (NSO), CAR

-Problem of census taking because of conflict -How to encounter the problem -Applicability of SMCE -Opinion regarding the initiative of RDC

Romeo T. Lopez (Interviewed for unresolved case)

Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator (MPDC), La Trinidad Municipality

-Reasons for not solving the problem -Initiatives so far -Conflicting Interests -Applicability of SMCE -Opinion regarding the initiative of RDC

William H. Estaben (Interviewed for unresolved case)

Councilor (Former MPDC), La Trinidad Municipality

-Beginning of the problem -Political view for not solving the problem -Reasons for not solving the problem -Conflicting Interest -Opinion regarding the initiative of RDC

Prudencio Mendoza (Interviewed for unresolved case)

Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator (MPDC), Tublay Municipality

-Reasons for not solving the problem -Initiatives so far -Conflicting Interests -Applicability of SMCE -Opinion of PC regarding the initiative of NEDA

(Interviewed for unresolved case)

Vice Mayor, Tublay Municipality -Beginning of the problem -Political view for not solving the problem -Reasons for not solving the problem -Conflicting Interest -Opinion regarding the initiative of RDC

Mariano T. Caluza (For unresolved case)

Barangay Captain, Shilan Barangay, La Trinidad

-Local level initiatives to solve the problem -Opinion/status of the local people


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Appendix-4: Questionnaire for the participants of the general orientation on boundary conflict seminar in November 7th, 2006

Pleas answer following questions to better address your issues on boundary conflicts Name (optional):……………………………………………………………………………..

Organization:………………………………………………………………………………..

How many boundary conflict(s) are your familiar with/involved in? (use municipality names)

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Kindly circle your dot (•) of choice for the following 10 statements. 1. The municipality/ies can resolve boundary conflicts without external assistance.

Agree • • • • Disagree

2. Facilitation by a third party is necessary to resolve conflicts I know.


3. Mediation by a third party is necessary to resolve conflicts I know.


4. Mediation is more necessary than facilitation to resolve conflicts I know.


5. Scale models (3 dimensional maps) are necessary to resolve conflicts I know.


6. Maps (2 dimensional maps) are necessary to resolve conflicts I know.


7. Knowledge about discovering new alternatives for the area needs to be captured in maps to resolve conflicts I know.


8. Multi-criteria evaluation is necessary to resolve conflicts I know.

Agree • • • • Disagree Please turn over

9. Spatial multi-criteria evaluation is necessary to resolve conflicts I know.


10. The Municipality has a willingness to pay for third party services in resolving conflicts.



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Kindly answer the following 5 questions. 11. What are the costs to the LGU of keeping current conflicts unresolved?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

12. What are the benefits to the LGU of keeping current conflicts unresolved?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

13. What are the reasons why conflicts that you know, have not been resolved?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

14. What other support in boundary conflict resolution would you find useful?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………

15. Do you have any other comments or suggestions?

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………


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Appendix-5: Statistical analysis of questionnaire

No of boundary conflict you are familiar with Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid 1 9 28.1 39.1 39.1 2 3 9.4 13.0 52.2 3 4 12.5 17.4 69.6 4 4 12.5 17.4 87.0 5 3 9.4 13.0 100.0 Total 23 71.9 100.0 Missing System 9 28.1 Total 32 100.0

The municipality can resolve boundary conflict without external assistance

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 14 43.8 43.8 43.8 More agree than disagree 2 6.3 6.3 50.0 More disagree than agree 3 9.4 9.4 59.4 Disagree 13 40.6 40.6 100.0 Total 32 100.0 100.0

Facilitation by a third party is necessary to resolve conflicts I know. Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 21 65.6 65.6 65.6 More agree than disagree 1 3.1 3.1 68.8 More disagree than agree 5 15.6 15.6 84.4 Disagree 5 15.6 15.6 100.0 Total 32 100.0 100.0

Mediation by a third party is necessary to resolve conflicts I know. Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 18 56.3 58.1 58.1 More agree than disagree 5 15.6 16.1 74.2 More disagree than agree 4 12.5 12.9 87.1 Disagree 4 12.5 12.9 100.0 Total 31 96.9 100.0 Missing System 1 3.1 Total 32 100.0

Mediation is more necessary than facilitation to resolve conflicts I know. Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 16 50.0 51.6 51.6 More agree than disagree 6 18.8 19.4 71.0 More disagree than agree 5 15.6 16.1 87.1 Disagree 4 12.5 12.9 100.0 Total 31 96.9 100.0 Missing System 1 3.1 Total 32 100.0


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Scale models (3 dimensional maps) are necessary to resolve conflicts I know. Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 21 65.6 67.7 67.7 More agree than disagree 4 12.5 12.9 80.6 More disagree than agree 3 9.4 9.7 90.3 Disagree 3 9.4 9.7 100.0 Total 31 96.9 100.0 Missing System 1 3.1 Total 32 100.0

Maps (2 dimensional maps) are necessary to resolve conflicts I know.

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 16 50.0 51.6 51.6 More agree than disagree 8 25.0 25.8 77.4 More disagree than agree 2 6.3 6.5 83.9 Disagree 5 15.6 16.1 100.0 Total 31 96.9 100.0 Missing System 1 3.1 Total 32 100.0

Knowledge about discovering new alternatives for the area needs to be captured in maps to resolve conflicts I know.

Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 21 65.6 67.7 67.7 More agree than disagree 6 18.8 19.4 87.1 More disagree than agree 2 6.3 6.5 93.5 Disagree 2 6.3 6.5 100.0 Total 31 96.9 100.0 Missing System 1 3.1 Total 32 100.0

Multi-criteria evaluation is necessary to resolve conflicts I know. Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 24 75.0 75.0 75.0 More agree than disagree 4 12.5 12.5 87.5 More disagree than agree 2 6.3 6.3 93.8 Disagree 2 6.3 6.3 100.0 Total 32 100.0 100.0

Spatial multi-criteria evaluation is necessary to resolve conflicts I know. Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 17 53.1 58.6 58.6 More agree than disagree 5 15.6 17.2 75.9 More disagree than agree 3 9.4 10.3 86.2 Disagree 4 12.5 13.8 100.0 Total 29 90.6 100.0 Missing System 3 9.4 Total 32 100.0


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The Municipality has a willingness to pay for third party services in resolving conflicts. Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Agree 12 37.5 37.5 37.5 More agree than disagree 3 9.4 9.4 46.9 More disagree than agree 7 21.9 21.9 68.8 Disagree 10 31.3 31.3 100.0 Total 32 100.0 100.0

What are the costs to the LGU of keeping current conflicts unresolved? Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid None 1 3.1 4.2 4.2 Obstacle to development 8 25.0 33.3 37.5 Peace and order 1 3.1 4.2 41.7 Bad relation 2 6.3 8.3 50.0 Life 2 6.3 8.3 58.3 Money 2 6.3 8.3 66.7 Loss of taxes 3 9.4 12.5 79.2 Less IRA 3 9.4 12.5 91.7 Peace and Time 2 6.3 8.3 100.0 Total 24 75.0 100.0 Missing System 8 25.0 Total 32 100.0

What are the benefits to the LGU of keeping current conflicts unresolved? Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid None 9 28.1 33.3 33.3 More IRA 9 28.1 33.3 66.7 No spending of money 2 6.3 7.4 74.1 No loss of time, money and effort 6 18.8 22.2 96.3 Reservation of Natural Resources 1 3.1 3.7 100.0 Total 27 84.4 100.0 Missing System 5 15.6 Total 32 100.0

What are the reasons why conflicts that you know, have not been resolved? Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Political unwillingness 12 37.5 38.7 38.7 Lack of LGU resources 4 12.5 12.9 51.6 Procedural difficulty 2 6.3 6.5 58.1 Status Quo Money 2 6.3 6.5 64.5 Political unwillingness and lack of resources 3 9.4 9.7 74.2 Political unwillingness and procedural difficulty 1 3.1 3.2 77.4 Stubbornness of decision makers 1 3.1 3.2 80.6 Lack of coordination 1 3.1 3.2 83.9 Lack of information 1 3.1 3.2 87.1 Vague Laws 2 6.3 6.5 93.5 Lack of expertise of the concerned person 1 3.1 3.2 96.8 Short political tenure 1 3.1 3.2 100.0 Total 31 96.9 100.0 Missing System 1 3.1 Total 32 100.0


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What other support in boundary conflict resolution would you find useful? Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Active Participation and Facilitation by Line

Agencies 4 12.5 15.4 15.4

Training 5 15.6 19.2 34.6 Commitment of Officials 2 6.3 7.7 42.3 Resurvey 3 9.4 11.5 53.8 Provincial finance and mediation 4 12.5 15.4 69.2 Direct court resolution 2 6.3 7.7 76.9 Documentation of agreement 1 3.1 3.8 80.8 National Government Funding to solve 2 6.3 7.7 88.5 Consideration of highly prioritize issue 1 3.1 3.8 92.3 Administrative Order to solve the problem 2 6.3 7.7 100.0 Total 26 81.3 100.0 Missing System 6 18.8 Total 32 100.0

Do you have any other comments or suggestions? Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative Percent Valid No suggestion 1 3.1 5.6 5.6 Removal of Land from IRA calculation 2 6.3 11.1 16.7 RDC Coordination 2 6.3 11.1 27.8 Local Chief Executive initiative 1 3.1 5.6 33.3 Removal of Land and population from IRA

calculation 1 3.1 5.6 38.9

Pilot project 1 3.1 5.6 44.4 Amendment of process 1 3.1 5.6 50.0 Inclusion of penalty clause 1 3.1 5.6 55.6 Time frame to solve 1 3.1 5.6 61.1 Revelation of Un-erroneous data 2 6.3 11.1 72.2 Engage eligible person 1 3.1 5.6 77.8 Non involvement of politician 1 3.1 5.6 83.3 Involvement of congress 1 3.1 5.6 88.9 Innovative method to form win-win situation 1 3.1 5.6 94.4 Permanent conflict resolution body 1 3.1 5.6 100.0 Total 18 56.3 100.0 Missing System 14 43.8 Total 32 100.0


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Appendix-6: Narrative Description of the Boundary between La Union and Benguet

(Executive Order Number Eleven, 1909; Reproduced in Section 44, Administrative Code, 1917) The boundary between La Union and the sub-province of Benuet, in the Mountain Province, is as follows: To reach the point of beginning start at the point called “Final”, or “X6”, in the next preceding paragraph, thence up the Cabassitan River, which is in part the boundary line between the sub-province of Amburayan and the Province of La Union, to the point of beginning, thence beginning at the junction of the Cabassitan and Rachuelo Rivers, thence in a curved line to the south around the barrio of Duplas, leaving that barrio in the Province of La Union, till the line joins the Riachuelo River; thence up the Riachuelo River to the lowest place in the mountain ridge; thence crossing this ridge and descending on the southerly slope down the creek Alalapang to its junction with the Naguilian River and crossing the Naguilian River to a prominent point of rock known as “Cruz” to all the people of a large district and which is the location of the boundary line in this section between the towns of San Fernando and Naguilian, the same being an old well-known landmark; thence in the same direction over the hill about one thousand feet to the Creek Paldit and following this Creek Paldit to its source; thence crossing the ridge at the lowest point between the Mounts Liddug and Diccan to the Diccan River; thence down said Diccan River to its junction with the Salnip forming the Ribsuan River; thence down the Ribsuan to the junction of the Ribsuan River and the Bayating River; thence up the said Bayating River about one kilometre passing a monument of stone and cement erected in the time of the Spanish as a boundary mark between the districts of La Union and Benguet, continuing to the mouth of the Creek Lungis; thence up said creek to its source, the barrio of Ancauay being in La Union Province; thence through the lowest place in a direct line to a point called Siam on the opposite ridge, the same being further designated by a marked tree; thence down the River Caboang to its junction with the Galiano River the same being just above the barrio of Galiano, Galiano being in the Province of La Union; thence down the Galiano River in the same general direction to the mountain from which the river reverse its course; thence across this mountain spur to the base of Mount Alipang at the River Alipang, giving all the barrio of Rizal to the Province of La Union; thence up said Alipang River to the barrio of Pugo; thence following the road known as Calle Real to the barrio of Ambangonan. The barrio of Ambangonan being Christian, an offset is here made and thus described; from the river crossing of the Calle Real continue up the river about one-half mile, thence in a direct line back to the Calle Real at the foot of the hill about one-half mile from the river on the Calle Real, forming an equilateral triangle. Thence, continuing on the line of the Calle real to a point overlooking the Inabaan Valley, at which point a cross is ordered placed, from this point the boundary is to follow a direct line across the valley to a point between the barrios of Cuenca and Casilagan, very near Cuenca, the barrios of Casilagan, Inabaan, and Garampang being in La Union, and Cuenca, San Luis, Enmistampa, Mauasuas, and Dagunpan being in Benguet, to a cross on a hill directly west of Dongon; and thence from this point in a direct line to Dongon, Dongon being the boundary point between Benguet, Pangasinan, and La Union.


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Philippine Legislature Act No. 2877 1920 Sec. 2. This act shall take effect on its approval. Approved, January 8, 1920 No. 2877.- An Act to modify and establish the boundary line between the Mountain Province and the Provinces of Ilocos Sur and Lan Union Be it enacted by the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Legislature assembled and by the authority of the same. Section 1. The present boundary line between the Mountain Province and the Provinces of Ilocos Sur and La Uniion is hereby modified and fixed by moving it eastward to a location beginning approximately at the northeast corner of the present subprovince of Lepanto and running in a direction slightly southwest to the point of intersection of the present boundaries between Amburayan, Lepanto, and Benguet, thence following the present boundary between the sub-provinces of Amburayan and Benguet to its intersection with the boundary line of the Province of La Union. The portion of the present subprovince of Lepanto lying east of the new boundary line is hereby added to the sub-province of Bontoc. All territories west of said line, which include various municipal districts which commercially are naturally tributary to the seaport towns of Ilocos Sur and La Union, are hereby transferred to, and made part of, said provinces. The provincial boards of the provinces concerned need not order a survey of said boundary line but only shall cause the erection of monuments at convenient or necessary points on said line for the guidance of local officials and the public in general. To this end, the provincial boards of Ilocos Sur and La Union, or such representatives as may be duly authorized by them, shall confer with the provincial board of the Mountain Province or its duly authorized representatives with a view to locating and monumenting the boundary line herein fixed, and the line thus monumented, if approved by the Secretary of the Interior, shall be the boundary between the Mountain Province and the Provinces of Ilocos Sur and La Union. Sec. 2. The present boundary line between the Province of La Union and the sub-province of Benguet, as established by Executive Order Number Eleven, series of nineteen hundred and nine, and reproduced in section forty-four of the Administrative Code of nineteen hundred and seventeen, is hereby abolished, and all the barrios or sitios formerly belonging to La Union and annexed to the Mountain Province by said Executive Order are hereby restored to La Union. Sec. 8. The boundary between the Provinces of Ilocos Sur and La Union on the territory transferred to said provinces by virtue of this Act Shall be the main course of the Amburayan River and the old boundary recognized by the administrative authorities prior to the annexation of said territory to the Mountain Province. The Provincial Boards of the Provinces of Ilocos Sur and La Union or their duly authorized representatives shall confer together with a view to agreeing as to the location of said old boundary and placing the necessary monuments on the boundary thus agreed upon. In case of a failure to agree, the Secretary of the Interior shall render the decision.


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Appendix-7: The decision unit involvement of the resolved and the unresolved cases

Structure of decision unit in the resolved case Organization Name Designation

Hon. Raymundo W. Celino Hon. Marciano T. Inso

Chairman, Boundary Dispute Committee

Hon. Danie L. Belisike Vice Chairman of the committee Hon. Fernando M. Aritao Committee member Hon. Domingo B. Bay-an Committee member Hon. Roberto L. Fernando Committee member Hon. Agosto P. Santos Committee member Hon. Francisco L. Golingap Committee member

Provinical Council

Hon. Wasing D. Sacla Board member, PC Hon. Liso Agpas Municipal Mayor Hon. Rogelio Leon Municipal Vice Mayor Municipal Officials Councillors Barangay Officials Barangay Captain

Kapangan Municipality

Municipal Experts Engineer, Assessor Hon. Joseph Cosente Municipal Mayor Hon. Tito Acop Municipal Vice Mayor Municipal Officials Councillors Barangay Officials Barangay Captain

Tublay Municipality

Barangay Officials Barangay Captain Local People Mr. Mathias Sudaypan Resident

Structure of decision unit in the unresolved case (first attempt) Organization Name Designation

Hon. Dennis Melintas Provincial Governor Hon. Jose Mencio Acting Provincial Governor Hon. Serafino K. Buangan Member

Mountain Province

Hon. Santiago S. Balajo Member Benguet Sub-Province Hon. Luis Hora Governor

Hon. Sixto Acop Mayor Hon. Togan Vice Mayor

Tublay Municipal District

Municipal Officials Councillors Hon. Cipriane Abales Mayor Hon. Billy Holman Vice Mayor

La Trinidad Municipal District

Municipal Officials Councillor Local People Mr. Carlos Marinez Policeman, witness

Structure of decision unit in the unresolved case (second attempt) Organization Name Designation

Willy L. Velasco Mayor Hon. Ben W. Polig Vice Mayor, Presiding Officer Municipal Officials Councillor

Tublay Municipality

Municipal Experts Engineer, Assessor Hon. Nestor Fongwan

Mayor

Henry M. Kipas Chairman, Ad Hoc Committee for the Settlement of Boundary Dispute Municipal Officials Councillor

La Trinidad Municipality

Municipal Experts Engineer, Assessor


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