Philippines End of Term Report 2013-2015

While the content and implementation of the Philippines’ second action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen... demonstrated significant improvement over the first action plan, the government made little progress on commitments. Action plan implementation stalled after the mid-term review; key concerns are the absence of both a fundamental freedom of information law and whistleblower protection.

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) is a voluntary international initiative that aims to secure commitments from governments to their citizenry to promote transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance. The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective ... carries out a review of the activities of each OGP participating country. This report summarizes the results of the period 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2015 and includes some relevant developments through June 2016.

The Steering CommitteeThe Steering Committee is OGP’s executive decision-making body. Its role is to develop, promote and safeguard OGP’s values, principles and interests; establish OGP’s core ideas, policies, and ru..., made up of representatives from government, civil society, and the business community, leads the OGP in the Philippines. The Steering Committee serves as the consultation and coordination forum on the status and implementation of action plan commitments.

The Good Governance and Anti-Corruption Cluster (GGACC) of the President’s Cabinet is the coordination unit responsible for OGP activities in the Philippines. The GGACC Secretariat is housed in the Department of Budget and Management, which also serves as the Secretariat of the Steering Committee and is responsiblefor coordinating commitmentOGP commitments are promises for reform co-created by governments and civil society and submitted as part of an action plan. Commitments typically include a description of the problem, concrete action... implementation and served as the communication center for the Steering Committee.

In September 2015, the government presented its third OGP action plan and began implementation in October 2015. Editorial Note: due to the shift in the action plan implementation calendar, there is a threemonth overlap period between the end of implementation for the second action plan and the start of implementation for the third action plan. Since many of the commitments from the second action plan recur in the third action plan, the IRM has included relevant information on progress through 31 December 2015.