MANILA – The country’s bid to ensure transparency on government processes and engagement makes it among the best in this field, Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Wendel Avisado said.
In his presentation during the second virtual pre-State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) forum Wednesday, Avisado said the Philippines remains among the world leaders in open government after it included people’s organizations (POs) and non-government organizations (NGOs), among others, in the budget formulation.
He said citizen engagement and participation also provided the government the capacity to monitor the effectiveness of the various government programs.
This, Avisado said, enabled the country to secure 10th place among 117 countries that participated in the Open Budget Survey 2019 and the most transparent in Southeast Asia in terms of budget transparency.
“This implies that we were able to make budget information publicly available in a comprehensive and timely manner through the publication of all eight key budget topics, such as the Enacted Budget and the Citizens Budget, among others,” he added.
Avisado said the Philippines is also the only country in the world where citizens are included in the auditing team of the Commission on Audit (COA) through the agency’s Citizen Participatory Audit (CPA) program.
He said all these achievements have been attained through the help of the private sector, the civil society organizations (CSOs), POs, development partners, the academe, media, and the citizens in general.
Amid all these positive developments, Avisado said challenges remain and these include the need to improve on frontline service delivery, build open and responsive public institutions, and increase mechanisms for information dissemination.
“That is why for our future directions, we need to undertake (a) more strategic and convergent approach in promoting participatory governance through the revision and enhancement of the (Participatory Governance) Cluster’s program and projects under the PGC roadmap,” he added. (PNA)
