G-Watch is taking part in a new undertaking that holds government to account in protecting public’s right to health that is endangered by interference by powerful private corporate actors in health-related policies and in public conscientization. The specific private corporate interest we look into are the powerful tobacco industry players whose strong and innovative lobbying work compromise public health.
The Political Democracy and Reforms (PODER) and Government Watch (G-Watch) of the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG), in collaboration with Ateneo de Naga, Naga City People’s Council (NCPC) and Jesse M. Robredo Center for Good Governance (JMR Center), recently spearheaded the forum on the "Ill-Effects of Dynastic Politics and the Imperative of Political and Electoral Reforms as a Campaign Issue".
30 mid-level leaders in politics/governance from participating KASYP countries in South and South East Asia met from 2nd to 4th February to launch a new initiative called the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung Young Political (KASYP) Leaders Caucus.
Local leaders and public officials ask Cebuanos to be more proactive in fighting corruption
Government Watch (G-Watch), a program of the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG), was recognized by the Australian Embassy’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade for its contribution in improving the financial management system of civil service in the Philippines.
In a local forum, Liberal Party bets, mainly members of the influential Mercado clan, and candidates from United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) trade barbs and talk platforms.
In the 1990s, the Philippines government was corrupt, and the Department of Education among the worst offenders. In high schools, the shortage of textbooks was so great that eight children had to share a single copy. After Congress passed the Government Procurement Reform Act, the education department set to work to provide the right number of high-quality textbooks to the nation’s schools. A crucial aspect was mobilising civil society NGOs to check that suppliers were delivering what they promised, a key monitoring initiative being Textbook 1-2-3.
Local candidates present their programs on agriculture and fisheries development, bottom-up budgeting, conditional cash transfer, electoral reforms, and youth empowerment
PFMP’s technical assistance encourages transparency in government’s procurement process
This case study pertains to an assessment conducted by the Basel Institute on Governance, in collaboration with UNDP’s Global Anti-Corruption Initiative (GAIN), of a social accountability monitoring project in the municipality of San Miguel, Bohol in the Philippines. The aforementioned project, called Bayaniham Undertaking Living in a Healthy and Organised Neighborhood or BULHON sa Panguma (BULHON), involves the monitoring of agricultural subsidies and was developed and implemented by the Government Watch (G-Watch) programme of the Ateneo School of Government in Manila.
In the 1990s, the education sector in the Philippines faced a major crisis. The Department of Education (DepEd) was accused of extensive corruption, in particular in the field of textbooks procurement (according to Philippine law the government is obliged to provide students with free textbooks) (Ramkumar 2010). At least three forms of corruption were suspected: officials were awarding overpriced contracts to unqualified bidders, suppliers were not honoring their contracts (many textbooks remained undelivered even after the government had paid for them), and some vendors were providing books of poor quality (Ramkumar 2010).
On 19 April 2014, the Transparency and Accountability Initiative and Hivos brought together funders, civil society organizations, and researchers to consider the opportunities and challenges of linking state and civil society efforts towards greater transparency and accountability (T/A). This short think piece (Strategic Dilemmas & Context FG SR) picks up on the conversation to encourage collective thinking, research and action.
'If the mechanism of our government is working towards ensuring transparency and accountability, we might not even have to do what we have been doing as a civil society organization'