Division of Price range and Administration Sec. Amenah Pangandaman. Photograph by Ryan Leagogo/ INQUIRER.internet
The Govt department, led by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. and thru the efforts of Division of Price range and Administration (DBM) Secretary Amenah “Mina” F. Pangandaman, has earned the assist of the enterprise group as a result of its ongoing efforts to advance the individuals’s proper to entry info.
Talking in a media interview a day after thousands and thousands of Filipinos voted within the nation’s midterm polls, Makati Enterprise Membership Govt Director Rafael “Apa” Ongpin, cited the Freedom of Data (FOI) Invoice as one of many precedence legislative measures that the enterprise group hopes the subsequent Congress will take into account enacting.
The passage of the FOI invoice is seen to considerably influence the enterprise group by fostering transparency, accountability, and empowered citizenship.
“I ought to level out, and I at all times level this out to folks that, usually talking, the department of presidency that resists Freedom of Data probably the most is the Govt, proper? Not simply because they’ve one thing to cover nevertheless it’s as a result of it’s a whole lot of work for them, you understand. They’re truly an expense. They’re truly to create groups to service the general public with this info. So usually talking, [the] govt branches of presidency have a tendency to withstand Freedom of Data. The alternative is the case with the Marcos [Jr.] administration,” Ongpin identified.
“That could be a superb factor. We’ve gotten a lot assist, significantly from their workforce chief on this, who’s Price range Secretary Amenah Pangandaman. She is only a star. And he or she has put in a lot work into this. It’s superb contemplating usually it’s the govt that resists this factor,” he added.
Advancing the FOI Invoice
Sec. Pangandaman, who additionally chairs the Philippine Open Authorities Partnership (PH-OGP), has been dedicated to upholding transparency and freedom of data by pushing for the passage of the FOI Invoice within the twentieth Congress.
“It has been over three a long time because the submitting of the very first FOI Invoice, and we have now but to go an enabling regulation that can actually uphold the individuals’s constitutional proper to info. It could have been an extended highway forward, however we’re absolutely dedicated to taking motion, particularly as a result of we have now the assist of a minimum of our President. We’re grateful to the President as that is very a lot aligned with our imaginative and prescient to make the Philippines a world chief in transparency, accountability, and citizen participation in governance,” Sec. Pangandaman mentioned.
To recall, President Marcos underscored that citizen participation in governance requires entry to info, made attainable by the “institutionalization of FOI by means of laws.” He made the pronouncement throughout the 2025 OGP Asia and the Pacific Regional Assembly final February.
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In assist of this, the PH-OGP, in partnership with the Presidential Communications Workplace, has carried out a sequence of stakeholder consultations to revisit methods and chart the subsequent steps for the passage of the FOI Invoice. Contributors included representatives from authorities, civil society, academé, and the non-public sector.
As a testomony to the administration’s dedication to upholding entry to info and monetary openness, the Philippines has additionally cemented its place as probably the most fiscally clear nation not simply in Southeast Asia, however in the entire of Asia, based mostly on the 2023 Open Price range Survey.
The result’s attributed to DBM’s well timed and complete publication of all key finances paperwork, together with the pre-budget assertion, proposed and enacted finances, in-year and mid-year studies, and the Folks’s Price range sequence.
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With the robust assist of President Marcos, Sec. Pangandaman vowed to place the Philippines as the highest nation on the planet for finances transparency.
