Social accountability and freedom of information

By Dr. Antonio G.M. La Viña

Access to information is critical for social accountability and governance at large. Most crucial therefore of the tools that promote social accountability is the freedom of information bill which continues to be pending in Congress. For this reason, I devote the fifth column of my social accountability series on this matter.

While this has been announced as a priority of President Benigno Aquino III almost from his inauguration, it is almost disheartening to note that more than a year has passed since his election to the Presidency without significant progress in getting the bill through Congress, and that he had been virtually silent on the matter in his last State-of-the-Nation Address (although he subsequently addressed the issue in media). To date, the matter is still under “careful study”, which has saddened if not angered government reform activists.

Disappointed as I am about developments, I am not inclined at the moment to either lay blame on him or anyone else for the bill’s stalled status, or to consider this a betrayal of the public trust by people involved. Even well-meaning policies like FOI must pass through the formal legislative process in order to properly become law, and compete with other demands on the government’s agenda. Also, a policy reform as transformative as FOI will naturally encounter much inertia from affected officials, bureaucracies, and interests. The reality is that sustaining far-reaching policies will require much political capital. I am quite familiar with this, in experiences ranging from protecting vulnerable forests while in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, to the painstaking negotiations for peace in Mindanao (as both an observer-consultant and once as part of the government negotiating panel). Governance is a very costly business, which demands the utmost care from its practitioners.

A Report Back to my Colleagues and Partners in ANSA EAP

Greetings from the just ended WB Annual Meetings for Fall 2011!

It is with gladness that I share with you some news and thoughts about some exciting things I have learned during the flurry of activities, conversations, advocacies and sharing in this gathering of CSOs for the WB annual meeting.

As you note ANSA EAP has not been investing much time and effort establishing presence in the many consultations and gathering of CSOs on the global level. This is due to our decision to focus our efforts especially during the start up phase of ANSA EAP - to the much needed work of consolidating the CSO networks towards a social accountability framing and perspective.

As I compose this letter, I look back to the time before ANSA EAP when the work of social accountability was seeded in the 2007 consultations held in Tagaytay, Philippines. In this event, Mary McNeil of the World Bank Institute in Washington DC and Andrew Parker of the WB Country Office in Manila, joined Phil CSO leaders in dialogue as they shared their analyses, programs, and initiatives in pushing a demand for good governance agenda and linking it to the concept of social accountability.

Open Development: Beyond Proprietary Solutions

by Dr. Angelita Gregorio-Medel

Information is power—this is not new—but information in the hands of activist citizen groups can determine the course of national development.

Information technology, the open source system in particular, has begun to revolutionize the people-centered development movement, contributing to a phenomenon called open development. The open source system enables citizens to access resources that used to be held only by experts in the form of knowledge and influence. The system breaks this proprietary hold on resources and “allows communities to work together and solve problems” (Irving Wladawsky-Berger. OSS Watch Team Blog).

Open development implies collaboration among networked individuals and communities. In the developing world, citizens and civil society groups are becoming co-creators of solutions, not passive recipients of assistance.

Open development has four key attributes:

• user engagement,
• transparency,
• collaboration (participation in resource creation), and
• agility (the ability to “ride waves” and the flexibility to respond to changing environments).

Social accountability, antidote to corruption

By Dr. Antonio G.M. La Viña 

With this column, I resume the series on social accountability which I began last month. So far as I have written three columns on the subject: introducing this new governance tool, discussing how it could be mainstreamed, and defining it. In this column, I will examine the utility of social accountability as a solution to corruption, a timely topic given the recent re-arrest of ex-General Carlos Garcia to serve his court-martial sentence.

When we speak of anti-corruption, the popular images which appear to the layman’s mind are that of the “crusading, crime-busting official” (usually the Ombudsman, especially now with former Justice Conchita Carpio-Morales in the office) or the “lone voice in the wilderness”, often personified by the whistleblower (such as Clarrisa Ocampo, Jun Lozada) or a conscientious, compassionate public servant (like Heidi Mendoza) against an insensitive and corrupt bureaucracy. Yet the battle for efficient, effective, and responsive governance is one that is not successfully fought alone.

As the old adage goes, “it’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon.” More accurately, it is a relay race: more than one participant contribute to sustaining the effort towards the finish line. In fact, it is sad to reiterate that one reason why anti-corruption has yielded sluggish results in the Philippines is that we, as citizens, demand clean government yet fail to supply resources to make such government successful and sustainable.

Social Accountability in Action: Shifting Perspectives in Cambodia

by Tin Aquino

How do social accountability initiatives contribute to changing mindsets about governance in Cambodia?

The five-part video tells the story of five social accountability initiatives that are rooted in history, traditions, and real needs:

• Introduction
• Social accountability and the Media
• Youth Participation in Governance
• Social accountability at the Commune Level
• The Social Accountability Network in Cambodia

The custodians of these stories single out what is revolutionary in the everyday: the slow but shifting perspective of Cambodian citizens and government officials in taking on the need to constructively engage one another.

ANSA-EAP is proud to have helped incubate these stories of transformation through its Support for Strategic SAc Initiatives Program (2008 to 2011).

Videos also embedded below.