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ALTERNATIVE BUDGET
PROPOSALS FOR 2012
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Alternative Budget Initiative
People's participation, transparency and
accountability in the national budget
process
In many communities worldwide, it has
been proven that citizens’ involvement
in the budget process leads to improved
delivery of social services and
increased investment for the
marginalized or most vulnerable sectors.
The innovative interventions of
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and
people’s organizations (POs) improved
public expenditure management and
oversight.
The budget, as the primary management
tool of the government, reflects the
administration’s economic and political
priorities as well as its political will
to achieve socioeconomic development.
Hence, it is connected to every aspect
of governance – reforms, policies,
anti-corruption efforts, delivery of
social services and others.
The Philippine budget process was put in
place by the totalitarian regime of
Ferdinand Marcos -- dominated by the
executive and has no third-party
monitoring. There is lack of voices from
the grassroots to demand action on
serious gaps in spending for
socioeconomic services.
The budget landscape has started to open
up to citizens due to Social Watch
Philippines’ (SWP) Alternative Budget
Initiative (ABI) which initiated
citizens-legislator partnerships in
formulating and lobbying for alternative
budget proposals. As a result of SWP/ABI,
the Philippine legislature broke
tradition by, for the first time in
Philippine history (2007), allowing
citizens’ groups to present alternative
budget proposals and recommendations on
the National Budget Bill during formal
hearings in Congress. Also the ABI’s
partner Senators and Congressmen, due to
SWP’s persistent push for legislations
on budget reforms, authored bills to
institutionalize people’s participation
in budgeting (House Bill 219 and Senate
Bill 2186).
Senate Bill 2186 and the enhanced
version of House Bill 219 set the
mechanisms for accreditation of NGOs and
people’s organizations to participate in
budget deliberations in the Senate,
House of Representatives and Local
Government Units; and to be involved in
the preparation of agency budgets. It
grants rights and entitlements to
accredited groups such as proposing
alternative budgets and alternative
sources of financing; participating in
budget deliberations at various levels
of Government; and serving as resource
persons during budget oversight. Both
Bills cited that the inspiration of the
proposed laws is the Social Watch
Philippines and Alternative Budget
Initiative’s four years of fruitful
experience in pursuing direct people’s
participation in government budgeting.
Despite these gains, SWP recognized that
the challenge is to ensure that no one
is left behind – to empower the
marginalized groups so that their voices
will be loudly heard in the arena of
Philippine public finance. There is an
urgent need to strengthen the capacities
of marginalized sectors to directly
engage in the government budget process
because severe under spending for social
development exacerbates their situation.
About 30 million Filipinos living below
the poverty line, have no capacity to
participate in public finance; establish
partnerships with major players; and
follow the cycle from policy proposal to
approval, implementation to
accountability. There is also lack of
awareness and appreciation among local
officials on the need for participatory
budgeting to curb corruption.
Based on a United Nations Development
Programme Governance Unit commissioned
study on people’s participation in
budgeting done by SWP lead convenor
Prof. Leonor Magtolis Briones in 2010,
there is some divergence on how civil
society and government perceive
citizens’ participation. While citizens’
view it as empowerment, influencing
decisions and holding decision-makers
accountable, government’s perspective is
largely information sharing. Hence, not
all information is shared due to
confidentiality issues and there are no
mechanisms for sharing all information
on the budget. Feedback from citizens
are supposed to serve as inputs for
policy making, but the decision-makers
are not bound to follow such “inputs”;
ultimately, citizens do not have a say
on the final policy making. Also, many
citizens’ groups are actively engaged in
demanding accountability from public
officials but very few are concerned
with accountability in public finance.
To address this, SWP implemented
capability building and advocacy program
that aims to achieve enhanced capacities
of marginalized groups – women,
indigenous people, farmers, fishers – to
engage in local and national budgeting;
formulate gender responsive budgets; and
initiate government-citizens
partnerships in determining utilization
of public funds and budget reforms.
This groundbreaking effort was first
implemented in three municipalities of
Negros Oriental (Sibulan, La Libertad,
Dauin) and with the Mamata Tribe in
Makilala, North Cotabato. The European
Union, United Nations Millennium
Campaign, UN MDG Achievement Fund and
Cord Aid supported the initiatives. The
Local Government Units of the
municipalities and provinces supported
the partnership on budgeting by
mobilizing all LGU personnel to actively
cooperate and issued ordinances adopting
the budget proposals from the citizens.
One of SWP’s main thrusts is to “Reclaim
the People’s Purse” by pushing for the
institutionalization of participation of
the vulnerable sectors in
decision-making on the budget. This is
seen as an approach to help address the
grave inequality which is the primary
reason for repeated failures of poverty
alleviation strategies.
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