BAGUIO CITY — For checks and balances in the delivery of government services and to assure corruption-free governance, the active participation of civil society organizations is a must, the Participatory Governance Cluster of the Cabinet (PGC) has said.
Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Austere Panadero expressed this sentiment of the PGC at the regional dialogue for Luzon on Open Government and Participatory Governance held here on Tuesday.
Representatives from the Cordillera, Regions 1, 2, and 3 attended the state-initiated forum.
The International Open Government Partnership, where the Philippines is one of the eight original members, aims to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.
Panadero said under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, good governance and anti-corruption are recognized as cross-cutting concerns, thus, it came up with the PGC to enable the public to understand, rationalize, and implement national government programs and projects based on area-specific realities and strengthen consultation mechanisms to ensure effective program and project implementation, and to propose policies, programs, and projects that would foster participatory governance and build the capabilities of local government units.
He explained that in the country, civil society organizations have been institutionalized in the system as members of the special bodies like the health board, development council, peace and order and others. But the PGC wants more of their participation in governance.
Panadero said the CSOs had also suggested to increase their participation in local government governance from one-fourth to 50-50 membership to balance the involvement of the private sector and the government.
“After our consultations, we will do some reforms to make the participation balance, if not in all local governments, at least in the majority of the local government units,” Panadero said.
He said the CSOs also want to have some skill-training on local governance.
“They recognize that not because they are members they are already effective; they also want to be trained and supported by the government for them to properly engage,” Panadero said.
He said one area where the CSOs are useful is research or the use of government data.
“Maraming data sa operation ng local government na pwedeng aralin (there are a lot of data on local governance that can be studied). Those from academe said they want to help on that part. So gusto naming aralin paano palawakin ang suportang kailangan para makapagbigay sila ng analysis sa LGUs kung saan sila (We want to know in what areas we can support them, so we’ll also know how they could help their respective LGUs),” he said, pointing out this is one way the government could further civil society participation in local governance.
Panadero added the civil society could be very helpful in monitoring government projects on the ground. The DILG alone, he cited, has 6,000 projects being monitored. (Liza Agoot/PNA)
