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Established in 2000 in response to the plethora of reports on corruption and inefficiency in the government, Government Watch (G-Watch) is an action research program of the Ateneo School of Government that specializes in expenditure-tracking and monitoring government agencies' program implementation.
Citizen engagement for good governance is at the heart of the work of G-Watch. Its experience in engaging the government for performance monitoring has become a leading practice of social accountability.
At the national level, G-Watch has partnered with the education, health, public works, social welfare, and budget departments, among others. In 2010, G-Watch pioneered in helping bring together citizen groups and local government units in localized application of its social accountability approach -in Naga City; Puerto Princessa City; Dumaguete City; Island Garden City of Samal; San Miguel, Bohol; and Southern Leyte.
In 2010, the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG) implemented a joint-monitoring project called Bayanihan Undertaking Living in a Healthy and Organized Neighborhood or BULHON sa Panguma (BULHON).
BULHON was coined from the local bisaya dialect. It conveys the bayanihan spirit or cooperation exhibited by a community during rice harvest season.
The project sought to localize the G-Watch Social Accountability (SAc) approach at the LGU/CSO level by implementing a joint government-citizen initiative to monitor agricultural services particularly rice subsidy and production programs. The G-Watch Localization project was made possible through the support of the European Commision's Strategics Projects Facility 2.
This article was first published in https://sites.google.com/site/municipalityofsanmiguelbohol/g-watch.