Pork Barrel and Open Government Partnership

On a daily basis the news and debates about the Pork Barrel has been plaguing the government and the Philippines. While the public waits for the charges to be levelled and reforms to be done here are some readings that the people … We need to know.

Here is a PCIJ Report on how Pork Barrel was spent:

PORK A LA PNOY: HOW THEY SPENT P60B IN 3 YEARS: Abuse, misuse of PDAF linger under ‘Daang Matuwid’
BY MALOU MANGAHAS AND KAROL ILAGAN

Here are another set of documents and agreements. Did you know that the Philiooine Government is part of the Open Government Partnership?

What is the Open Government Partnership?

OGP was launched in 2011 to provide an international platform for domestic reformers committed to making their governments more open, accountable, and responsive to citizens. Since then, OGP has grown from 8 countries to the 60 participating countries indicated on the map below. In all of these countries, government and civil society are working together to develop and implement ambitious open government reforms [SOURCE]

Part of the process includes a yearly assessment report and here is the Philippime assessment for 2012:

2012 Philippine Open Government Partnership Country Assessment Report

The Philippine’s OGP Action Plan seeks to address three out of the five grand challenges identified by OGP. The three are improving public services, increasing public integrity, and more effectively managing public resources.

…

B. Areas for Improvement

There is much that can still be improved in the process undertaken in developing the Philippine’s 2012 OGP Action Plan. The development of the plan was primarily a government effort with the participation of business and civil society. The PhilOGP and its Steering Committee should likewise be maximized as multi-stakeholder mechanisms for the crafting, implementation and monitoring of the OGP Action Plan.

The following good practices in multi-stakeholder engagements should be considered in planning the process for the development of the next OGP Action Plan.

a) Regularly convene the PhilOGP Steering Committee

b) Announce the schedule of public consultations and timeline on-line

c) Publish a summary of the public consultations

d) Undertake more awareness-raising activities on OGP and the OGP Action Plan

In addition, participants of the multi-stakeholder consultation on the self-assessment report gave the following additional recommendations.

a) Set up an online mechanism for gathering feedback

b) Conduct more public consultations in developing the plan, including consultations outside Metro Manila

c) Review the action plan’s alignment with the OGP eligibility criteria

d) Develop a strategic framework that can help determine the inclusion or exclusion of programs in the action plan

e) Determine target outcomes and indicators to determine relevance of the Plan to the over-all goal of the Philippine government

f) Look beyond the monitoring of outputs for future assessment

g) Consider the partnership with independent/third party evaluators for some programs …

[SOURCE: 2012 Country Assessment Report – Downloadable from Budget ng Bayan]

Note: In all Open Government Partnership documents both from the group and the Philippine Government emphasis is placed on the partcipation of the public.

A check at the website of Open Government Partnership willmteveal that for 2013 the assessment report has not yet been uploaded. This week there is going to be a briefing on the OGP-IRM (Open Government Partnership- Independent Reporting Mechanism ) Report and it isi important that we know what is in this report, how far has the Philippine Government progressed from 2012.

Here is the country page of the Philippines at OGP.

This is not about politics, we do not want to jail those who are guilty not even put into power any political personality and party, but it is about good governance and overaight: knowing where our money is spent and making sure it is spent wisely.