“Prospects for CSOs on Making Participatory Governance Work and Sustaining it Beyond 2016”
At the Opening Plenary of its 17TH General Assembly, CODE-NGO invited three speakers to provide various perspectives about the prospects for CSOs on the subject “Making Participatory Governance Work and Sustaining It Beyond 2016.” Cagayan de Oro Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, Department of Budget and Management Secretary Florencio Abad and Presidential Adviser on Environmental Protection Neric Acosta, admonished the assembly to action from the socio-cultural, political-economic and environmental perspectives, respectively.
Socio-cultural Perspective: “Social Auditing versus the Immorality of Corruption”
by Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, Archbishop of Cagayan de Oro
Archbsp. Ledesma discussed about Social Auditing, the Catholic church’s pastoral statement on the scam related to the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and the issue of corruption in government. He cited the actions needed to run after all those involved in the PDAF scam: 1) scrap pork barrel fund to create an effective method to deliver social services that are corruption- free; and 2) pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill that promotes public transparency and accountability.
On Corruption
He defined Corruption as the rampant misuse of public funds. “Corruption” comes from Latin words which mean “a heart that is broken”, but not a broken heart in the romantic sense. “Corruption is our country’s biggest problem. He said that if the prosecution of political leaders and big fishes can be done in Indonesia, which confront the same problem, then we should also consider doing it here. He mentioned the three calls of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines to the public: (1) to form circles of discernment, (2) for the laity to exercise their right and duty to support candidates that are qualified and public service minded, and (3) to engage in principled partisan politics to encourage transparency and accountability.
On Social Auditing
Archbsp. Ledesma said that social auditing means the monitoring and evaluation of publicly funded projects by a multi-sectoral group from Civil Society. It goes beyond traditional financial auditing, by trying to verify on the ground the progress or completion of a project from the point of view of the intended beneficiaries. This may include concerned citizens, NGOs, academe, media, churches, etc. It will only work if the monitoring bodies are perceived as being independent, neutral, without a hidden political agenda, and genuinely concerned about the welfare of the local community. These social auditing bodies will be more credible if they are multi-sectoral, multi-religious, and represent the broad range of interests in a local community.
Political Perspective: “A Historic Moment for People’s Empowerment”
by Hon. Florencio Abad, Secretary of Department of Budget and Management (DBM)
Secretary Abad said that we are at a crucial crossroads in our country’s history, and today is a historic moment for people empowerment. The people have a big opportunity to inject greater transparency and accountability in government operations and strengthen public institutions along clearly defined roles and functions. He said that it was a culture of patronage that brought about the PDAF scam. Congresspersons had been too focused on providing services to their constituents and not on law making. “How can government provide services to the people, services which are truly needed, without creating dependency among our people? It is this dependency which feeds the political patronage system. We have to build new ways, new relationships and a new culture which will replace the culture of patronage,” Sec. Abad said.
“Patronage is a dominant culture but we can build a significant subculture that can overcome or dominate it,” he added. He talked about an important program of the government to end patronage and dependency which is the Bottom Up Budgeting (BUB) or now called the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting, that will make national government more responsive to local needs and services. He cited that the government is aware of the many problems which still beset this process, but he added that the government is working to address these. As an example, he cited that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) will soon post online the reports on BUB project implementation so that information on these projects are more easily accessible and that the people can monitor them. “We hear that in some areas, it is only the mayors who decide on the projects. This will not change until we have strong local civil society organizations, including church based groups, which participate in this process in our municipalities,” he added.
He also emphasized the use of “Community-Driven Development Approach,” particularly for DSWD’s livelihood and economic program for ‘graduates’ of the conditional cash transfer program. He said that community facilitation is critical for development to happen. DSWD’s social protection program or ‘Pantawid Pamilya’ should not be looked at in isolation. It goes with other programs such as basic education, universal health and others which provide the poor with the economic base so that they will eventually become self-reliant and end their dependency on politicians and government.
After his talk, there were recommendations from the audience on allocating government funds to deploy community organizers in calamity areas who can help in the rebuilding efforts. Sec. Abad replied that they can bring this up to multilateral agencies they are engaging with in relation to rehabilitation and rebuilding efforts. He added that, “It is clear to us all that we should not repeat the “mistakes of Haiti” in the Yolanda affected areas. We need to ensure that rehabilitation and rebuilding will be community driven, so that we build back better.”
Download a copy of Secretary Abad’s presentation on “A Historic Moment for People’s Empowerment.”
Environmental Perspective: “Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Simulations”
by Secretary Neric Acosta, PhD, Presidential Adviser on Environmental Protection and General Manager of Laguna Lake Development Authority
Secretary Acosta said that pressing and urgent requirements about Ecology needs to be embraced. He stressed that the highest form of national security is Ecological Security and that we cannot have economy without ecology. Now, because of Yolanda, people want to understand the environment and climate change, and want to act.
He mentioned that giving attention to the environment is an urgent matter because the Philippines is the second riskiest place in the planet next to Japan. We are visited by 21 typhoons every year and is located in the Pacific ring of fire. Our forest cover has gone down from 30 million hectares in 1900s to 10 million hectares in 1970s to 3 million hectares in 2010. We are very vulnerable not only because of the number of natural disasters, but also because of our demographics. Manila is the most densely populated city in the world, with 66,000 people per square kilometer. Metro Manila has grown from 6 million people in 1989 to 15 million in 2012.
He cited studies identifying 28 climate hot spots in the Philippines, which have been presented to relevant government agencies even before major disasters have hit the country. Of these, 14 have already been hit by major floods and disasters since 2008, the 14th of which was Tacloban. He cited that the recent typhoon Yolanda has created ‘climate refugees’ and there may be some areas in Tacloban and other parts of Leyte where people may just not be able to go back and would have to move away from coastal areas to inland sites.
Using his presentation materials on Hydrological Cycle and Effects on Watershed and Sea Level Rise Simulations in the Philippines, he enumerated these 28 critical climate hotspots in the country. Those which have been affected by typhoons and ‘habagat’ in the past were Pangasinan, Central Luzon, Laguna de Bay, Mindoro, Coron, Roxas City, Iloilo, Cagayan de Oro, Cotabato City, Zamboanga City, Butuan, Iligan City, Panabo and Tacloban City. The rest in the list include Laoag City, Aparri, Batangas, Lucena City, Puerto Princesa, Naga City, Bacolod City, Cebu City, Bais, Dumaguete, Surigao, Ozamis, Digos, General Santos and Basilan.
In relation to the program’s theme, he said that everyone should have an understanding of the larger environment. “When we talk of participatory governance, we not only talk of mechanisms for participation, we also need to have an understanding of the general environment. If we will build, what can we build in an area (considering all the ecological implications),” he added.
Since the Aquino administration has only more or less 800 days in office, he said that elements like Water, Food, Health, Land/Home and Livelihood should be addressed on a daily basis. He said that he wanted to add an environment focus to the government’s mantra to state, “Tuwid na daan sa luntiang paraan.”
A lively open forum followed his talk, with several questions from the audience. On the question of how to adequately respond to disasters, if almost all areas of the country are disaster prone, Sec. Acosta replied that we cannot avoid natural calamities and that they will happen, but it is important that we get the appropriate warnings ahead of time, and that we are prepared with what we need to do. He added that Climate Change should be the next President’s focus.
On the question about the need to transition into renewable energy sources, Sec. Acosta replied that this is a difficult policy issue. While we do not want our power plants to be powered by coal and fossil fuels, renewable energy sources cannot meet the requirements of our population now. He refers to this issue as the ‘tyranny of the urgent’.
He closed his message by playing a video animation about Climate Change and by saying, “No matter how difficult the times are, we cannot extinguish hope.”
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