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Philippines: A Leader in Open Government

Writer's picture: FINANCE AND ECONOMICSFINANCE AND ECONOMICS

Margaux Salcedo | New York | September 26, 2024


I had the privilege and honor of joining Secretary Amenah Pangandaman in New York to attend the Open Government Partnership Leaders Roundtable on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 2024) on September 26, 2024.


Sec. Pangandaman as Budget Secretary of the Republic of the Philippines is Chairperson of the Philippine-Open Government Partnerhsip (PH-OGP). The Philippines is a founding member of the Open Government Partnership (OGP).


OGP is a worldwide network of governments partnering with civil society organizations to create action plans to combat corruption, strengthen the accountability of governments, encourage more public participation in policy-making, and essentially do everything possible for greater good governance worldwide.


It was launched by former President Barack Obama in 2011 with the Philippines as a founding member, along with Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, South Africa and the United Kingdom.




At the Leaders Roundtable, Sec. Pangandaman spoke on anti-corruption and integrity.


She highlighted the following:


  1. The New Goverment Procurement Act (Republic Act No. 12009), which replaced our 20-year old procurement law, was crafted not just for efficiency in procurement but as an anti-corruption measure, especially considering that the Philippine Government allots 40 to 45 percent of its annual budget to procurement undertakings


In her speech, she highlighted three noteworthy features of the NGPA:


(1) This law guarantees transparency through open contracting, wherein all stakeholders will have access to procurement information and observers from the private sector and civil society will be invited to participate in all levels of procurement proceedings.


(2) The NGPA now also requires bidders to disclose beneficial ownership information to identify the ultimate owner and prevent collusion in public procurement.


(3) It likewise specifies measures to hold public officials accountable and imposes penalties for non-disclosure and false entries on beneficial ownership information.


  1. The Philippines through the DBM has greatly improved on budget transparency.


    "Towards public accountability and integrity, we have taken steps to intensify information transparency and access. With focused determination, we improved our ratings in the Open Budget Index: the Philippines is now No. 1 in Asia in budget transparency based on the 2023 Open Budget Survey. We likewise ranked sixth in the world for budget oversight, as our Commission on Audit institutionalized and mainstreamed the Citizens Participatory Audit technique—a commitment conceived under our previous National Action Plans and awarded by OGP—into regular financial, compliance and performance audits."


  2. In the Philippines, OGP has been institutionalized through Executive Order No. 31, signed by the President in June 2023. This EO ensures that open government values are embedded in government policies and programs across all branches of government.

     

She also mentioned efforts at digitalization as pursued by the Public Financial Management Reforms Roadmap, launched this month.


Watch her full speech delivered which I captured at the Roundtable at the Ford Foundation here:



Sec. Pangandaman joins the global OGP Steering Committee this October—their term started on October 1—alongside Brazil, Morocco, Estonia and the United Kingdom.


It was also inspiring to listen to the remarks of OGP CEO Sanjay Pradhan, wherein he spoke of the strengths of OGP and its priorities moving forward. He has announced that he will step down as CEO—the search is on for a new CEO—after serving since 2016. His leadership has been exemplary and he will be greatly missed!



Here's to making governments more transparent and accountable one National Action Plan at a time!


The Philippines will be hosting the Asia Pacific Regional Summit this coming February 5-7, 2024. For more on PH-OGP, visit the Philippines OGP web page: https://ogp.dbm.gov.ph/

Congratulations and cheers to the OGP!

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