MANILA, (PNA) — Budget and Management Secretary Florencio Abad on Sunday said that the Aquino administration is prepared to intensify its bid for greater transparency and accountability in government, particularly in wake of the recently concluded Open Government Partnership (OGP) Summit in London, where the Philippine delegation presented the country’s OGP Action Plan for 2013 to 2015.
The summit, which concluded in November 1, also ended on a high note for the Philippines, with the country besting six other finalists to win the Bright Spots Competition. The winning entry—the Commission on Audit’s (COA) Citizen’s Participatory Audit (CPA) project—outshone other innovations on transparency and citizen participation from other countries, including Indonesia, Chile, Montenegro, Estonia, Georgia, and Romania.
“What is particularly significant about our participation in the OGP summit is that despite the challenges we’re facing in our transparency and accountability campaign, the Aquino administration is keener than ever on reinforcing the strength of our good governance agenda. More importantly, we’re just as determined to push for greater reform toward sustainable public engagement, so that government processes—especially those related to the national budget—will increasingly involve the participation of an empowered citizenry,” Abad said.
Speaking before other participants in the Asia Regional Caucus, Presidential Spokesperson Sec. Edwin Lacierda noted that while current government initiatives for transparency and openness will require further improvement, the Aquino administration has not lost it sights on deepening citizen participation and ensuring better public accessibility to government data.
“We will need to tighten coordination among our agencies to ensure that the disclosure of information is always efficient, timely, and accurate. With civil society and the public already very interested in what we’re doing, though, it shouldn’t be difficult for us to engage them in an even deeper and more earnest discussion on government reform. The forthcoming launch of our Open Data portal this November is a decisive step toward that,” Lacierda said.