House panel tackles bills for people’s participation in budget process

MANILA — The House Committee on People’s Participation tackled on Wednesday various bills meant to pave the way for the public to take part in crafting the national budget.

The panel on Wednesday approved a motion to create a technical working group (TWG) to consolidate the different versions of the bill.

4K party-list Representative Iris Montes, who authored one of the bills, stressed that people’s participation should not be limited to just some parts of the budget process but instead civil society and people’s organizations should be involved from preparation to audit and accountability.

Montes proposed incorporating the Commission on Audit’s (COA) Citizen Participatory Audit (CPA) mechanism into the measure.

“Mas gusto ko po sana if we will provide a framework for people’s participation, it should include the whole budget process from preparation to authorization, execution, and accountability. And in fact, madali naman na po siguro in terms of accountability because COA has its Citizen Participatory Audit Framework. We can just integrate it there so para the whole process is covered,” Montes said.

The CPA is a technique in conducting audits with citizens as members of COA Audit Teams, according to COA’s website.

Montes’ bill, House Bill 4523 or the “People’s Participation in the National Budget Process Act,” also provides for the participation of civil society organizations or CSOs as resource persons in budget hearings.

Some lawmakers also want to ease documentary requirements that CSOs should submit for accreditation.

For Kamanggagawa party-list Representative Elijah San Fernando, the accreditation process could be used to exclude some civil society organizations (CSO).

“Okay naman ‘yun– ‘yung accreditation process, makita natin, ma-verify further sino ba ‘tong pumapasok na mga CSOs. Pero baka doon sa proseso ng pag-a-accredit, ma-exclude pa natin, o magamit pa na proseso ng exclusion ‘to doon sa mga CSOs,” San Fernando said.

CODE NGO’s Mack Hale Bunagan asked the committee to reevaluate just how necessary some documentary requirements are.

“We do call for a reevaluation of the necessity of the following– including documentary requirements that we feel are irrelevant to participating in the budgeting process. Specifically, these are the audited financial statement for the past three years, the list of the officers, directors, beneficiary owners and members, and administrative and criminal records. We submit that these are irrelevant to participating in the budgeting process,” Bunagan said.

Bunagan also proposed including safeguards prohibiting agencies and local government units (LGU) from imposing additional requirements.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department’s (CPBRD) recommended establishing a feedback process on people’s participation.

“I think among the major feature that should help institutionalize CSO participation is the rules should really specify who may participate when participation occurs, what information participants receive, how submission are made, and how they enter the decision-making process. “And there should be also a feedback process on their participation,” Romulo Miral Jr. of the CPBRD said.

For Adolfo Montesa of the People’s Budget Coalition, allowing people participation is crucial in ensuring transparency.

“For example, the flood control scandal, which began in the budget during amendments that were made after committee hearings, after the agencies had already defended their budgets. Insertions were made with no-name proponents. And there were small committees that finalized changes after the formality of the third reading,” Montesa said.

“Nobody outside of Congress could ask the hard questions while the budget was still being amended behind the closed doors– why a line item was increased or added to the budget because no one could ask for it,” Montesa added.

Currently, there are some initiatives in the lower chamber for CSOs to be able to raise concerns on the budget.  This included the People’s Budget Review, which was held in September.