Browse our latest documents and publications covering G-Watch Monitoring Manuals, Governance Reform Studies, Political Democracy and Reforms (PODER) Publications, and Vertical Integration Research.
This short paper briefly looks at Balangay and how it was developed as a useful application of digital technology to address a specific governance problem of Legazpi City. It also examines the challenges that Legazpiitfaces in enabling strategic collective action to promote responsive and accountable governance.
In a nutshell, Balangay is a cloud-based information system that aims to provide “prompt, reliable and understandable information” regarding various natural disasters that may threaten the Legazpi City, such as typhoons, flooding, landslides, earthquakes,and volcanic eruptions. It comes in the form of a web and mobile app that is meant to help prepare the City’s residents for any possible calamity.
How can ordinary citizens pressure local officialstorespond to their demands? The people from the province of North Cotabato in Mindanao seemsto have found a solution and areisattempting to further enhance it.
This case is about how an organization attempts a strategic shift: from pressure/ protest-only approach to employing an integrated approach: pressure politics and constructive engagement. This case investigates what the enabling factors were of such a strategic shift and the challenges involved in going through with it. Since the strategic shift also involved the use of digital technology as facilitated by a global program (Making All Voices Count), the case also reflects on when and how digital technology worked (in this case, did not work) to support the work of an organization.
Going Vertical is a result of action-research collaboration between Government Watch (G-Watch) and the Accountability Research Center (ARC) on multi-level citizen action for accountability. This book investigates how one strategic approach to citizen accountability - vertical integration - enabled seven reform initiatives in the Philippines to gain meaningful results.
A National Meeting of G-Watch local core group members and partners was convened on February 23-25, 2017 held in Astoria Plaza in Pasig City. The discussion focused on how and why G-Watch should reboot, what are the processes it entails and what should be the priority issues and agenda it will tackle.
In 1988, the Philippines enacted a land redistribution policy known as the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP). After almost three decades of implementation, an estimated 13 percent of the land targeted for redistribution remains in the hands of powerful landlords. This paper investigates the contestation involved in the implementation of agrarian reform through the lens of multi-level accountability politics.