The attempt of civil society to venture into expenditure monitoring is a huge challenge. It is a new terrain that involves technicalities and requires access to critical processes and documents of the government.
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).
This strategy paper is a comprehensive guide for the sustainability of CSO-government engagement in the Department of Education (DepEd).
This conference-workshop is meant to start putting the citizens and civil society at the center, not mere expectators and recipients of policies and services - but as active actors pivotal in direction-/ agenda-setting and in leading this country to a better future.
Accountability is achieved and sustained by creating and strengthening institutions. Institutions are strengthened through accountability efforts and practices.
'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'
There is still much room for improvement in citizen participation in local education governance
This paper presents the result of the exploratory research conducted by a research team of Ateneo School of Government that studied the impact of civil society participation on the responsiveness of local spending for education.
One of the reasons the Pork exists is because it filled-in the gap of our maldeveloped/ underdeveloped party system, which is supposed to be the mechanism that facilitates the relationship between the executive and the legislature. And party system, in simplest term, refers to how you organize political partisan affiliations.
There is a fundamental problem if we are organizing a rally against a system that is perpetuated because of the underdevelopment or maldevelopment of the system for partisan politics if we are organizing it in a way that discredits or neutralizes the latter. We are contributing to a mindset in our political culture that is keeping us from developing our party system, key in making pork irrelevant or at least not the sole determing factor in the relationship between the executive and the legislature.
This is a simple and easy-to-use guide on how to implement a community-based monitoring of local service delivery using the tools and methods developed in the pilot implementation of the G-Watch Localization Project.
In the Philippines, since the end of martial law, civil society has been hailed as “the savior of governance,” playing the roles underperformed by the government or filling the gaps in the services needed by the people. One of the most crucial elements of civil society engagement in the Philippines is its reform work that is varied and encompassing. These actors constitute a large portion of what is being referred to as reform movements in the Philippines, which consist also of the reformers in government, political parties, local government units and other arenas.
Here is an easy-to-use guide on how to implement a community based monitoring of Infrastructure Projects of a local government unit (LGU) using the tools and methods developed in the implementation of Tambayayong sa Infrastrakturang Paglambo sa Southern Leyte.
This is an easy-to-use guide on how to implement a community based monitoring of the health program of a local government unit (LGU) using the tools and methods developed in the implementation of Subay Kahimsog in Dumaguete City.
This is an easy-to-use guide on how to implement a community based monitoring of the revenue generation for the environment of a local government unit (LGU), through the Environmental User’s Fee (EUF) using the tools and methods developed in the implementation of IGaCoS Bantay Kinaiyahan in the Island Garden City of Samal (IGaCoS).
This simple manual will instruct you on how to implement a community-based monitoring initiative for the rice production programs of your Local Government Units (LGU). It will teach you how to use the tools and methods developed during the implementation of BULHON sa Panguma.
Here is an easy-to-use guide on how to implement a community based monitoring of an ecotourism program of a local government unit (LGU) using the tools and methods developed in the implementation of Ambligan ang Kalibotan.
This is an easy-to-use guide on how to implement a community based monitoring of education service delivery of a local government unit (LGU) using the tools and methods developed in the implementation of Edukasyon sa Naga, Salmingan Ta! monitoring initiative.
This guidebook gives the citizens’ monitoring team, which we will call the Integrity Watch, a framework on how to assess the processes undertaken by the LGU and the WSP in water service provision. This guidebook is based on actual experiences of other citizens monitoring groups. It has been crafted using Human Rights-Based Approach to organization and development within the water sector, consistent with the MDGF 1919’s mainstreaming of HRBA.
Of all the books that I have managed to read, none is as deeply personal or as emotionally poignant as Subversive Lives 1. Written as a collective memoir of the Quimpo family, the book narrates their shared ordeal under the Marcos dictatorship, and the hardship that each of the siblings had to endure in the course of their resistance to Martial Law.
Such autobiographical style allows the reader to form a mental picture of the series of emotional storms that had repeatedly overtaken this family of “subversives”—from Norman’s Christian dilemma as he agonized over the question of joining the communist-led resistance; to Ryan’s narrow escape from death as the soldier who was about to shoot him was suddenly distracted by an exploding pillbox; to Lilian’s sense of dread and shame as she was repeatedly humiliated by her military interrogators.