by: Sandino Soliman

All eyes are now on the implementation of the Mandanas Ruling in 2022. 

The Supreme Court decided on the petition of then Cong. Hermilando Mandanas of Batangas and former Gov. Enrique Garcia Jr. of Bataan to qualify the “just share” of local government units’ (LGUs) Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA). The IRA is an automatic allocation of funds from the national government to all LGUs, and it is determined by the revenue collections with a set of revenue sources. The final court ruling in 2019 now expands and lists the revenue sources to determine IRA. Increasing the sources of revenue effectively increases the IRA of LGUs, and therefore increases the pool of funds of LGUs. This Mandanas Ruling shall be implemented next year, 2022, to give ample time for the government to operate on the ruling from 2019 until today.

Most recently, the government issued a policy to guide the implementation of the said ruling. Executive Order (EO) 138 issued in June 2021 mandates government agencies to create a Committee on Devolution (ComDev) composed of the main national government agencies involved in local government supervision and the major leagues of elected officials in the country. The EO further instructs the ComDev to issue implementing rules and regulations (IRR) after 30 days of issuance of the EO.

CODE-NGO’s Advocacy Working Group on Participatory Local Governance and members of the Philippine Open Government Partnership (PH OGP) Non-Government Steering Committee are keen to engage the government in planning for the roll-out of the Mandanas Ruling. The steering committee resolved to participate in the crafting of the IRR and informed the ComDev Chair. However, ComDev duly informed the OGP non-government partners that they could no longer consult CSOs at this time due to the timeline. In their reply letter they assured CSOs that they would include pertinent roles of CSOs in the draft IRR. 

The CSOs were disappointed with the ComDev reply, to say the least. Nevertheless, CSOs at regional, provincial, and municipal levels will pursue this engagement in crafting the Devolution Transition Plans as the EO 138 mandates. Members of CODE-NGO who sit in the Regional Development Councils such as the Coalition of Bicol Development (CBD), Central Visayas Network of NGOs (CENVISNET), Eastern Visayas Network of NGOs (EVNET), Mindanao Coalition of Development NGO Networks (MINCODE), and Western Visayas Network of Social Development NGOs (WEVNet), among others, keep abreast of the developments of the “full devolution” stipulated by EO 138. 

Related Resource:

The PH OGP, the Department of Interior and Local Government, and the Department of Budget and Management  organized the first webinar on the Mandanas Ruling, “IRA Noon at Ngayon: Alamin ang Magbabago!” [IRA Yesterday and Today: Know the Changes!] last May 2021. The webinar discussed the effects to the budget of national and local governments, and the important role of CSOs and the public amid these changes.

Watch the webinar here: