Open Data (PH0031)

The Open Data Portal (www.data.gov.ph) was launched in January 2014. Currently, the portal is host to more than 1,237 datasets, 80% of which are in open format. Main onjecitve is to To democratize access to government data through proactive disclosure in open formats and to empower citizens on how to use government data for practical innovation. Launched in January 16, 2014 during the Good Governance Summit, Open Data Philippines is the Philippine Government’s program to proactively release public sector datasets and generate an ecosystem for its use and reuse by the public. Open Data Philippines aims to institutionalize good governance by making government data available to the public. This involves collating datasets from different government agencies, cleaning them for better understandability, and uploading them to a website in open formats. The idea is that once all datasets become available, citizens will be able to verify for themselves key government transactions and track the movement of crucial resources.
The program’s innovative take on the public’s right to information is the supply of datasets in open and machine-readable formats and the development of data.gov.ph, the centralized repository for these datasets. The program is anchored on the following key result areas: access to public sector information, data-driven governance, public engagement, and practical innovation.
Open Data Philippines is not just a website, but a movement and a big part of the movement is citizen engagement. ODP regularly conducts capacity-building activities such as trainings, boot camps, consultations and developer competitions or hackathons for government agencies, civil society, academe and the private sector.

For Commitment details, see https://www.opengovpartnership.org/documents/philippines-mid-term-progress-report-2015-2017.

3. Open Data

Commitment Text:

The Open Data Portal (www.data.gov.ph) was launched in January 2014. Currently, the portal is host to more than 1,237 datasets, 80% of which are in open format. Main onjecitve is to To democratize access to government data through proactive disclosure in open formats and to empower citizens on how to use government data for practical innovation. Launched inJanuary16 2014 during the Good Governance Summit, Open Data Philippines is the Philippine Government’s program to proactively release public sector datasets and generate an ecosystem for its use and reuse by the public. Open Data Philippines aims to institutionalize good governance by making government data available to the public. This involves collating datasets from different government agencies, cleaning them for better understandability, and uploading them to a website in open formats. The idea is that once all datasets become available, citizens will be able to verify for themselves key government transactions and track the movement of crucial resources. The program’s innovative take on the public’s right to information is the supply of datasets in open and machine-readable formats and the development of data.gov.ph, the centralized repository for these datasets. The program is anchored on the following key result areas: access to public sector information, data-driven governance, public engagement, and practical innovation. Open Data Philippines is not just a website, but a movement and a big part of the movement is citizen engagement. ODP regularly conducts capacity-building activities such as trainings, boot camps, consultations and developer competitions or hackathons for government agencies, civil society, academe and the private sector.

Responsible institution: Office of the Presidential Spokesperson (OPS) | Department of Budget and Management (DBM) | Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office (PCDSPO)

Supporting institutions: World Bank, Step Up Consulting, World Wide Web Foundation, Open Data Labs Jakarta, Southeast Asia Technology and Transparency Initiative, International Center for Innovation, Transformation, and Excellence in Governance (INCITEGov)

Start date: 1 January 2015

End date: 1 January 2018

Commitment Aim

This commitment aimed to establish the proactive release of government data in formats that are machine-readable and reusable (open formats). It also aimed to generate an ecosystem that enables the public to use and reuse government data, through the Open Data Philippines (ODP) program. This was to be pursued by enacting policies that institutionalize ODP, finding a permanent institutional home for the program, and forming open data teams in at least five government agencies. Finally, the commitment aimed to promote the use of the open data portal through stakeholder engagement activities and by expanding the amount of information available on the portal, with target of 6,000 data files.

Status

Midterm: Substantial

Substantial progress was made toward achieving this commitment by the end of the midterm. Three commitment activities were substantially or fully completed, although the remaining two had not yet been started. In 2014, the Joint Memorandum Circular (JMC) 2014-01 was issued to institutionalize the Open Data Task Force;  ^{[Note: DBM, JMC no. 20-1 Jan. 22. Available at: http://www.dbm.gov.ph/wp-content/uploads/Issuances/2014/Joint%20Memorandum%20Circular%20/JMC%20no.2014-1_Jan22.pdf. ]}  JMC 2015-01 was issued in 2015, requesting that national agencies adopt open data practices.^{[Note: PCDSPO, Joint Memorandum Circular No. 2015-01, accessed on October 30, 2016,  https://bit.ly/1P3brib.  ]} As the IRM progress report was being written in late 2017, discussions were underway to identify the permanent government owner of the initiative. About 50 percent of the target number of data files (3,126) had been uploaded to the ODP portal. Training activities (including capacity building on data management and storytelling) were conducted to promote the use of the portal among relevant stakeholders. Agencies had started to form their open data teams but making them proactively release data (in compliance with JMC 2015-01) remained a challenge.

End of term: Substantial

While the implementation of this commitment remains substantial based on the progress made during the first year of implementation, the target of uploading 6,000 data files was not ultimately achieved. According to the government’s end-of-term self-assessment report, the portal contained only 3,399 data files as of June 2017. Out of the five target government agencies to organize stakeholders’ engagement events, only two events were organized during the period of the implementation of the third national action plan (June 2015-May 2017). These are Hack Tarlac by Tarlac City local government on 25 January 2015 and #ThinkOpenHealth by the Department of Health on 16 and 17 April 2016. Though there is already a memorandum circular on the institutional ownership of ODP, this has yet to be fully implemented with permanent staff and a regular budget allocation. However, the number of agencies that formed open data teams exceeded the target of five agencies - seven agencies have established teams, indicative of growing ownership of open data at the agency level. Finally, the portal remains active, though it has been transferred from data.gov.ph to gov.ph/data.^{[Note: Open Data Philippines https://www.gov.ph/data/. ]}

Did It Open Government?

Access to Information: Marginal

Proactive disclosure and the release of public data has not been established as a common practice in bureaucracy. ODP is contributing to encourage a culture of data openness through efforts to make data “searchable, accessible, and useful,” by consolidating datasets of different government agencies, and “allowing users to find specific information from a rich and continuously growing collection of public datasets.”^{[Note: Open Data Philippines, About http://data.gov.ph/about/.  ]} This commitment represents a crucial action by the government to support citizen access to information in the absence of a FOI law. Raisa Perez of the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), the new institutional home of ODP, sees it as “the platform for the government to share data as well as provide a space for citizens to request for data and information.”^{[Note: Perez, Raisa. Written response to questionnaire. Sent via email on September 19, 2017.  ]} However, the impact of ODP remains marginal for two reasons. First, the pace of which agencies have adopted and implemented open data practices has been slow; second, the use of the data available on the portal by citizens and civil society has been limited. Michella Manza, of the Open Data Team, explains that old practices are hard to break and that agencies lack incentives to post data online.^{[Note: Manza, Michelle. Ibid.]} Meanwhile, questions remain as to the data’s usefulness for the average citizen. Additionally, more work must be done to assess the mechanisms through which citizens access data and to understand why public demand for open data remains low. 

Carried Forward?

Open data is not a specific commitment in the 2017-2019 national action plan. However, the new commitment entitled e-Participation Tools Through the National Government Portal (NGP) by the Department of Information and Communications Technology is considered as the continuation (and expansion) of this commitment.^{[Note: Perez. Ibid.; Ph-OGP. End-of-Term Self Assessment Report. October 9, 2017.]} Raisa Perez explains: “The difference between the previous and the current commitments is that the focus is centered on the functionality of the NGP to serve as the platform for citizens to participate in government decision-making remotely. Part of empowering the citizens to participate in governance is to give them the necessary data to inform their suggestions and decisions. The manner of providing the citizens the access to government data and information will be done partly through the Open Data Philippines.”^{[Note: Perez, Raisa. Written response to questionnaire. Sent via email on September 19, 2017.  ]}