Governance Competence of Indigenous Representatives in Local Governance: Evidence from a Philippine Municipality

The inclusion of Indigenous representatives in Philippine local governance aims to promote participatory and culturally responsive decision-making; however, empirical evidence on their governance competence remains limited, particularly in rural and decentralized governance contexts. This study assesses the governance competence of Indigenous Peoples’ Mandatory Representatives (IPMRs) in a fourth-class municipality in Ifugao, Philippines, focusing on knowledge, skills, and functional capabilities, as well as the challenges affecting their performance and differences across demographic variables. Using a descriptive research design and total enumeration (n = 18), data were collected through a validated survey instrument and analyzed using descriptive statistics and nonparametric tests. Findings reveal a very high level of governance competence (M = 3.39), with skills (M = 3.42) and functional capabilities (M = 3.43) slightly exceeding knowledge (M = 3.33), indicating a practice-oriented pattern of competence. Perceived challenges were generally low (M = 2.10), with moderate constraints observed only in resource-related and inter-organizational aspects. No significant differences were found across most demographic variables, except for training exposure, which significantly influenced the skills domain (p = .006).These results suggest that governance competence is shaped more by experiential engagement and training than by demographic characteristics. The study contributes to the literature on Indigenous and decentralized governance by shifting the focus from formal representation to functional governance capacity. It demonstrates that competence among Indigenous representatives is primarily practice-based and more strongly shaped by training exposure than by demographic characteristics, while institutional, resource-related, and operational challenges operate as manageable constraints rather than significant barriers to governance performance. These findings offer practical guidance for strengthening capacity-building strategies in Indigenous and decentralized local governance settings.