What is the general status of civil society organizations in the Philippines today and what are some ways by which the development partners may support and work with CSOs?

A) The Philippine CSO Landscape

The broad definition of civil society organizations (CSOs) include all those that are non-government, non-profit and have voluntary membership.

1) Number of Philippine CSOs

There are 280,000 CSOs registered by the four government agencies that provide primary registration and legal personality to CSOs. These include 26,000 cooperatives registered by the Cooperative Development Authority, 18,000 homeowners associations, many of them urban poor associations, registered by the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), 72,000 workers unions and associations of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and various people’s organizations and alliances, NGOs, religious groups or faith-based organizations and others registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as non-stock and non-profit corporations (164,000).

In addition, there could be around the same number of CSOs that are existing but are not registered.

Related to their great number, CSOs in the country are also very diverse – in the size of their staff and resources, in their mission, programs and services, and in their beliefs and strategies.

It is thus very difficult to talk about Philippine CSOs as a whole. I will then focus on a subset of Philippine CSOs which I will call Development and Advocacy CSOs (D&A CSOs). These are CSOs that (1) focus on development and/or advocacy, (2) work not only to provide services to their members and (3) have sustained operations throughout the year. Many of these CSOs would be what many of us refer to as NGOs, which provide various services to partner organizations, communities or groups. But they also include many people’s organizations or POs and cooperatives.

2) Distinctive Advantages of Development and Advocacy CSOs

What are the distinctive advantages of these CSOs?

As already mentioned, there are a great number of them in the Philippines and they are very diverse.  Even if we assume that only 10% of the registered CSOs are active D&A CSOs, that would mean that there are 28,000 of them or more than half of the total 42,000 barangays in the country.

Most of these CSOs are small, which imposes limitations on what they can do, but this also means that they are very flexible and this leads to their capacity to take risks and innovate. While they are small, they have extensive formal and informal networks among themselves and with government and other sectors.

These CSOs are also rooted in the realities on the ground as they have strong interaction and immersion with the basic sectors and poor communities. Compared to government agencies and political parties, most of them are independent from political interests. They also have extensive experience and skills in organizing, participatory processes and leadership, and in delivering training, research, legal, health, and other services.

3) Four Roles of Development and Advocacy CSOs

As you know, development and advocacy CSOs have basically four roles. First, they serve as voices or platforms for the voices of sectors and communities and as their advocates. Second, they act as watchdogs or monitors, primarily of government, but also of businesses. CSOs are also co-implementors or partners of government – and of businesses, for selected programs and projects.  Finally, CSOs act as innovators, pioneering, for example, many of the community-based programs and transparency and accountability initiatives that are now supported or implemented by government.

It is for these reasons that D&A CSOs are acknowledged as important actors in our society.

B) The Legal and Regulatory Environment for CSOs

What then is the legal and regulatory environment for CSOs in our country?

I will refer to some highlights of two recent multi-country studies which looked at Philippine CSOs – the Enabling Environment National Assessment or EENA, done in 2015-16 and the CSO Sustainability Index (CSOSI) for 2016, which was done last year.

First, we have a supportive legal framework. CSOs and their role in governance and in society are acknowledged and supported by our 1987 Constitution and various major laws including the 1991 Local Government Code.

The registration of CSOs is relatively easy; however, registration offices particularly of the SEC are limited to Metro Manila and 8 major cities and the requirements and process of registration and reporting and accreditation of CSOs are “one size fits all”, instead of being proportional to the size and nature of the CSOs.

These studies also found that the interpretation of the tax exemptions of CSOs is not clear and they are not uniformly implemented. Moreover, there is no clear general policy or guideline for Government – CSO relations, especially for (i) the process for formulation of executive/administrative orders affecting CSOs (unlike the legislative process, which is clearly defined), (ii) financial and non-financial support for CSOs, and (iii) regulation/ accreditation of CSOs.

It is important to address these concerns in the next years so that we can build a more enabling environment for CSOs.

 C) Challenges Facing Development and Advocacy CSOs

CSOs face many challenges at this time. I will briefly discuss some of the major ones.

Internal to the Sector

1) Improving the financial sustainability of many CSOs. – Except for labor unions, cooperatives and other POs which can rely on their members’ contributions, and corporate foundations, CSOs struggle for financial survival. There have been moves to promote social enterprises as a response to this. This has value, but it has its limits for CSOs focusing on advocacy and on delivering services to the very poor. Diverse sources of funding for CSOs need to be developed, including enhancing domestic philanthropy particularly for development and advocacy CSOs.

2) We also need to continue and step up the strengthening of self-regulation by the sector and the improvement of organizational governance and management. These are needed to make CSOs more effective and sustainable.

3) A third challenge is attracting more of the young generation, which now make up the majority of our population, to support the work of and be more actively engaged with CSOs.

External Environment

4) Another challenge is effectively addressing persistent poverty and inequality. – Despite almost two decades of continuous and often impressive economic growth, we have been very slow in reducing the number of the poor and increasing our middle class. A recent study by the Human Development Network shows that even Vietnam has already overtaken us in this aspect.

5) Finally, another challenge for CSOs is how to sustain and strengthen their active and independent engagement in governance. This is vital so that they can pursue reforms and development, and protect human rights and democracy – especially during this challenging time in our nation’s life.

D) Strategies of Philippine CSOs

Given these terrain and challenges, what have CSOs been doing?

Again, I will focus on just a few – four – CSO strategies, and I hope that these are supported by more CSOs and by more of our development partners.

First, CSOs have been building and strengthening CSO networks to upgrade their capacities, effectiveness and advocacies. This is important since many CSOs are small so that networks are needed to facilitate and support common action and sharing of resources and lessons. However, CSO networks and CSO strengthening are rarely supported by local and foreign donor-partners who focus on tangible results on the ground.

Second, many CSOs have been pursuing the improvement of the legal and regulatory environment for CSOs, especially a general policy for Government-CSO Relations and people’s participation in governance. The NGO Sectoral Council of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) has, for example, started discussing in mid-2017 a proposed general policy for Government-CSO Relations. This is partly inspired by the Enabling Environment frameworks in many European countries. Various CSO networks have also been supporting the People’s Fund Bill in Congress, which will allow individual taxpayers to identify qualified CSOs that will be supported by government funds.

In this regard, we could learn from the EU, which has extensive experience in formulating and implementing policies for engagement with CSOs in Europe and in countries like the Philippines.

Third, CSOs have been forming partnerships with each other and with other sectors to attain collective impact in addressing poverty and in improving democratic governance. Such multi-sectoral partnerships can be (a) geographical, focusing on particular LGUs or areas, or (b) thematic, addressing particular concerns such as health, education, DRRM and human rights. One such multi-sectoral partnership of POs, NGOs, business, academe, media and government is the Zero Extreme Poverty 2030 (ZEP 2030) movement, which is led by the Assisi Development Foundation. ZEP 2030 aims to work together and build local multi-sectoral partnerships in 300 poor municipalities to address poverty and inequality.

These multi-sectoral partnerships bring together the capacities and resources of various organizations and sectors. It is important to have better coordinated and mutually supportive efforts to effectively address the complex challenges of poverty, human rights and democratic governance.

Finally, many CSOs have begun to enhance the effectiveness of their communication and social media work, to broaden public support, particularly among the youth, for the work of CSOs and also to promote tolerance, dialogue and respect for human rights. However, much more needs to be done in this important field.

Strong CSO networks, an enabling environment, multi-sectoral partnerships for collective impact and vibrant communications, all these need to be supported and enhanced by all of us.

This is an edited version of a talk made by the author at Consultation of the Civil Society Sector for the Country Roadmap for the European Union Engagement with Civil Society in the Philippines 2018-20, held last February 6, 2018 in Makati City.

Sixto Donato C. Macasaet is the former Executive Director of CODE-NGO. He is currently a part-time faculty at the Ateneo School of Government and a consultant at the Commission on Human Rights (CHR).