Government officials, members of civil society organization workers, academic experts, business people and international development agencies met on Saturday November 20 in Pasig City to sign an agreement in a bid to make government budgets more open.

The National Expenditure Forum (NEP) Forum 2011 – the initiative of Senator Teofisto “TG” Guingona culminated in the signing of a document binding representatives of the above-mentioned sectors to help ordinary citizens understand and ultimately engage in future national budget preparations.

“We enter into constructive engagement to ensure the practice of good governance in the government budgeting process,” says the introduction to the document – the “Declaration of Constructive Engagement for Open Budget Partnership”.

It further adds: “The goal of the Partnership is to promote transparency, accountability, and public participation in the preparation, authorization, execution, and monitoring of the national budget, within the limits allowed by law...”

No less than the heads of the finance committees of the both chambers of Congress led in the signing of the Declaration, namely Senate committee on finance chairperson Senator Franklin Drilon and Rep. Emilio Abaya, chairperson of the committee on appropriations of the House of Representatives. This may well be a signal that Congress is now responding to calls to support the new president's centerpiece program of anti-corruption and strengthening public sector transparency.

It was the weekend – and yet it was heartening to observe that most participants stayed to the end of the full day forum to take part in the discussions which focused on possible reforms in the budget process; identification of its strengths and weaknesses, and recommendations to improve people's participation in the whole national budget process. By the end of the day, the Declaration also bore the signatures of Secretary Butch Abad of the Department of Budget and Management; Sen. Guingona as the lead convenor; and House Deputy Majority Rep. Jorge Banal.

From the CSOs, those who signed were Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project director Alan Davis; Dr. Leonor Briones, convenor of the Alternative Budget Initiative; INCITEGov trustee Nieves Osorio; and representatives of the Procurement Watch, Kaakbay Citizens Initiative Inc., Kaisa para sa Kaunlaran, Philippine Association of Government Budget Administrators, Kaya Natin, Management Association of the Philippines, Mindanao Bloggers, Mindanao Development Council, North Luzon Coalition for Good Governance, CO Multiversity, Teachers Inc., Education Network and the Earth Savers' Movement.

PPTRP fully supports the Open Budget Partnership. As Sen. Guingona said in his opening remarks: “Access to budget information must be coupled with understanding to achieve meaningful participation. It is only through the combination of access and understanding the whole budget process when the citizens would have their say in the government budget.”

This reiterated what we had ourselves been saying in Bangkok during the 14th International Anti Corruption Conference where more than a thousand anti-corruption experts and advocates from all over the world gathered to share strategies and frameworks in the work to promote transparency in governments and private sector. As we pointed out then in several forums and break-out groups, accessing information is one thing – but understanding it entirely another.

To achieve combined access and understanding on the budget, efforts to increase public literacy in public sector finance is imperative. Thus, it is good move that the Declaration emphasized that the Partnership would entail a series of fora, workshops, seminars on the Open Budget Partnership. The use of public platforms, like websites, Facebook and other social networking schemes will also be useful to help budget non-experts to get interested on this important part of our country's affairs and to be able to ask critical questions to our leaders.

DBM Secretary Abad pointed out that the “default” in our country now when it comes budget matters is political patronage – something which must serve as a challenge both to government and CSOs working for reforms. “We usually accede to the privilege in order to preserve the status quo. The tendency is to put little funds everywhere to appease the state.”

Abad further said: “But if we want to win the support of the people, we should shift to empowerment. This means restructuring the national budget...Walang tunay na kaunlaran kung hindi kasama ang mamamayan (There would not be genuine development if the people are not involved).”

It is also good that Abad admitted the inconvenient truth about the government that it is not monolithic. Having a president who has declared open war on corruption and wastage does not necessarily mean that all those in government share the same passion.

This is why people's participation is all the more needed. We need to continue to ask questions, to ask for an open budget so as to make our government truly open and responsive to the people.

May this initiative prosper and harvest greater strength in the coming days, months and years.

But of course the budget process is only one part of the public spending puzzle: As was said during last Saturday’s forum, just as important is to monitor how the money is then spent – and ultimately, it is critical to measure actual performance.

All three elements together determine how effective and accountable a government really is.

Click here to read the full text of the Declaration.

Rorie Fajardo
Project Manager
Philippine Public Transparency Reporting Project