28/05/2026
๐๐ผ๐๐ฟ๐๐ ๐
๐๐๐๐๐ผ๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐ผ๐๐๐๐!
Link to Journal: https://jmcfijournals.org/index.php/pagsj/issue/view/13
The launch of a new journal invites reflection not only on the state of a discipline but also on the normative commitments that animate scholarly inquiry. For the ๐๐ถ๐ฃ๐ญ๐ช๐ค ๐๐ฅ๐ฎ๐ช๐ฏ๐ช๐ด๐ต๐ณ๐๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐๐ฐ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฏ๐๐ฏ๐ค๐ฆ ๐๐ต๐ถ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฆ๐ด ๐๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ๐ฏ๐๐ญ, those commitments are captured in the twin concepts that frame this maiden issue: ๐ง๐๐ช๐ณ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ด๐ด and ๐ซ๐ถ๐ด๐ต๐ช๐ค๐ฆ. These terms are not decorative; they denote the evaluative criteria against which governance systems must be judged. A public administration that fails to distribute resources and burdens equitably, that excludes marginalized voices from decisionโmaking, or that enforces rules without transparency or accountability, forfeits its legitimacy. Yet fairness and justice are not selfโexecuting. They are achievedโor underminedโthrough the mundane, everyday practices of institutions: how banks process loan applications, how conservation programs engage youth, how correctional facilities treat their officers, how political parties recruit women candidates, and how cities enforce public health ordinances.
The five studies collected here examine precisely such practices across five governance domains. Read separately, each contributes empirical evidence to a specific policy field. Read together, they reveal a more fundamental pattern: governance gaps that manifest as distributive inequalities, procedural exclusions, and unrecognized capabilities. In each case, fairness is not absent but misallocatedโor conditional on attributes that should be irrelevant to just treatment.
๐ญ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
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๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. The first study investigates ethical banking practices in the postโpandemic Philippines. Universal banks are tasked with an inherently fragile mandate: to pursue profit while safeguarding public accountability. The pandemic intensified this tension, exposing how digital transformation and regulatory adaptation can either narrow or widen inequalities in access to credit, fraud protection, and responsive dispute resolution. The study surfaces five dimensions of ethical banking that directly map onto distributive justice (who receives favorable lending terms and security against fraud) and procedural fairness (whether customers perceive processes as transparent, consistent, and nonโarbitrary). The finding that customers value security and relationship support alongside innovation underscores a basic justice principle: financial inclusion cannot be reduced to access alone; it requires ongoing institutional accountability.
๐ฌ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. The second study turns to marine protected areas (MPAs) and the role of youth in their implementation. Environmental conservation inevitably involves tradeโoffsโbetween ecological integrity and fishing livelihoods, between immediate enforcement and longโterm community stewardship. The studyโs key insight is that youth perceive MPAs not merely as biodiversity tools but as sites of communityโdriven empowerment and, conversely, as arenas of exclusion. When young people are relegated to passive compliance rather than active participation, the governance process violates intergenerational justice: those who will inherit the consequences of todayโs environmental decisions have the least say in shaping them. The studyโs call for educational empowerment and community integration is therefore a call to treat youth as coโdesigners of conservation, not as objects of policy.
๐ช๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. The third study examines correctional officersโ wellโbeing through the lenses of distributive justice and locus of control. Correctional institutions are uniquely hierarchical environments, and the wellโbeing of their personnel is rarely prioritized in justice research. Yet the fairness experienced by officersโhow rewards, recognitions, and workloads are allocatedโdirectly shapes their psychological agency and, by extension, the quality of the institutional environment they maintain. The study finds that perceived distributive justice and internal locus of control significantly predict occupational wellโbeing. This finding extends justice theory to state agents themselves: a criminal justice system that disregards the fair treatment of its own employees risks a legitimacy deficit that cascades throughout the entire apparatus.
๐ฎ๐๐๐
๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. The fourth study investigates the social, economic, and political challenges facing women in local political leadership. The demographic profile of female officialsโpredominantly married, middleโaged, and concentrated in lowerโtier positionsโis not incidental. It reflects operative social norms that confer legitimacy on the basis of perceived maturity and domestic stability, while simultaneously imposing care burdens that systematically exclude younger women and those without spousal support. The study documents three intersecting domains of constraint: social (dual identity management, gender stereotypes), economic (financial barriers, limited formal credentials), and political (electoral skepticism, motivational conversion of doubt). The coping strategies women developโcompetenceโbased legitimacy, maternal resilience, adversityโtoโmotivation conversionโare individually admirable but collectively insufficient. A justiceโoriented governance framework would not celebrate such resilience as an end in itself; it would dismantle the structural conditions that make resilience a survival requirement.
๐ท๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐. The fifth study analyses college studentsโ awareness of an antiโsmoking ordinance and its correlation with smoking beliefs. The findings reveal a crucial asymmetry: high ordinance awareness strengthens negative health beliefs and perceived barriers to smoking but does not operate through social normative pathways. This suggests that the current governance model relies heavily on informational justice (whether rules are clearly communicated and consistently enforced) while neglecting normative justice (whether the social environment supports compliance through collective expectations). The implication is not that enforcement is unimportant, but that fairness in health governance requires a dual strategy: visible sanctions complemented by communityโbased norm change. An ordinance that punishes smoking without reshaping the social acceptability of the behavior places an unequal burden on individuals who lack peer support for quitting.
What unites these five inquiries is a shared commitment to moving beyond formal proceduralism toward substantive governance justice. Formal justice asks whether rules exist and are applied uniformly. Substantive justice asks whether the outcomes of those rulesโand the processes that produce themโare fair to all affected parties, especially those with less power, voice, or resources. The banking study asks whether consumer protection rules translate into equitable access to credit. The MPA study asks whether conservation rules include youth as decisionโmakers. The correctional study asks whether personnel policies treat officers as valued agents rather than disposable functionaries. The womenโs leadership study asks whether electoral rules enable substantive political agency or merely formal candidacy. The antiโsmoking study asks whether public health rules are reinforced by social norms or left to individual willpower alone.
Each study also demonstrates ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฅ๐ฐ๐ญ๐ฐ๐จ๐ช๐ค๐๐ญ ๐ฑ๐ญ๐ถ๐ณ๐๐ญ๐ช๐ด๐ฎโexploratory factor analysis, phenomenology, quantitativeโcorrelational design, convergent mixed methods, and descriptiveโcorrelational analysisโas a deliberate strategy for capturing the multidimensional nature of fairness. No single method can fully capture how justice is experienced, contested, or institutionalised. The journal will continue to encourage this methodological openness.
This maiden issue would not exist without the trust of our authors, the rigour of our peer reviewers, and the institutional support of the Jose Maria College Foundation and our partner institutions. We extend our particular gratitude to the communities and research participants who shared their experiences, often on sensitive topics, in the belief that scholarship can inform better governance.
As we open submissions for future volumes, we invite work that continues to probe the normative foundations of public administration: not only what works, but for whom, under what conditions, and at what cost. Fairness and justice are not static endpoints; they are ongoing accomplishments of reflexive governance. We hope this journal becomes a forum for that reflexivity.
JMCFI Research Development & Publication
