CSOs challenge PH Gov’t claim of transparency and accountability
STATEMENT
February 4, 2025
As the Philippines hosts the 2025 Asia Pacific Regional Summit on Open Government Partnership (OGP) from February 3 to 7, 2025, the government proudly claims transparency in the government budget and inclusivity in its policy-making processes.
The Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG) and the Defend NGOs Alliance belie this and challenge the administration's claim that it prioritizes transparency in the national budget and that it is open to involve civil society organizations in policy-making.
The CPDG welcomes the Open Government Partnership's vision to improve the government’s relationships with its citizen through transparent, participatory and inclusive governance. CPDG has long been working to reclaim these democratic spaces," says Rochelle Porras, CPDG Vice President and CPDG Spokesperson for the Defend NGOs Alliance. "However, the Marcos Jr. administration's budget process is rife with secretive decision-making and it continues to attack civil society, which are contrary to the mission of the OGP.
The Marcos Jr administration is facing challenges at the Supreme Court for irresponsible fiscal behaviour where a small group of legislators, with the consent of the president, have been adding hundreds of billions of pesos in self-serving pork barrel projects since 2022. Petitions on this have already been filed regarding the 2024 and 2025 national government budgets, including against the abuse of so-called Unprogrammed Appropriations.
The national budget is criticized for priotitizing programs and projects benefiting a few while deprioritizing or even defunding health, education, housing and other social welfare measures. "This is unconscionable amid worsening poverty, hunger and joblessness especially since 2022 when this administration took office," stresses Porras.
Meanwhile, human rights violations continue under the Marcos Jr. administration including heightened judicial attacks on development NGOs. The human rights group Karapatan reports 3.7 million victims of threats, intimidation, harassments reaching between July 2022 and December 2024 which is already more than under the entire previous Duterte administration.
Worse, while it claims that civil society organizations have a place in government decision making processes, NGOs face increasing harassment, vilification and judicial attacks on spurious allegations of terrorism or terrorism financing.
Research by the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL) and Council for People’s Development and Governance (CPDG) shows how the Philippine government has been using Financial Action Task Force (FATF) compliance frameworks to justify restrictive measures against NGOs expressing dissent and criticism of the government. The research points to the increase of trumped-up cases for “paper compliance” and meeting arbitrary quotas for exiting the FATF “grey list.”
Today, February 4, 2025 board members and staff of the Community Empowerment Resource Network (CERNET) are defending themselves in their first trial at Cebu City Regional Trial Court Branch 74. They were accused with fabricated charges of terrorism financing as they allegedly delivered P135,000 to the South Eastern Front group of the National People’s Army (NPA) in Dumaguete City in Negros Oriental province in 2012. CERNET was established in 2001 to deliver basic goods and services to communities through people’s organizations (POs) to help in poverty alleviation.
“We challenge the Marcos Jr. administration to be truly open and withdraw its baseless accusations against NGOs, people's organizations and activists, including releasing all political prisoners incarcerated on trumped up charges," asserts Jazmin Jerusalem, Executive Director of the Leyte Center for Development (LCDe) and DefendNGOs Alliance National Spokesperson. "We also challenge it to take a firm stand to uphold accountability and good governance by supporting the call for the impeachment cases against Vice President Sara Duterte who has brazenly disrespected due process and allegedly faked documents on her use of billions in confidential funds," Jerusalem adds.
Jerusalem stressed: “Good governance includes genuine people’s participation without discrimination as to their religion, race, age, political belief and conviction among other protected attributes. Accountability and transparency are essential to building trust and fostering partnerships towards effectively addressing poverty and inequality."
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