Grassroots Governance for Sustainable Environmental Planning: Examining Manila Bay as Limit Case for Participatory Policy Implementation

Abstract In governance and social policies for environmental planning, communities are often engaged for decision-making, aspiring to fulfill democratic ideals. However, community participation is usually limited to decision making; policy implementation seems outside the scope and mandate of the community, considered separate from the governance body. This study takes up a limit case whereby community is inherent to governance. Drawing from the Philippines, we posit the barangay as a hybrid of sorts: local grassroots community while simultaneously formalized as ‘lowest government unit’. Using critical policy discourse analysis, we examine the 2022 Manila Bay Sustainable Development Plan for how participatory implementation is discursively planned and produced. We argue that what seems discursively produced is a devolution of state responsibilities without sufficient sharing of power, resources and knowledge needed for devolution to follow empowerment as paired logic. Yet, deliberative engagement, capacity-building and technical assistance were unmistakable, opening possibilities for participatory implementation.