Citizens’ participation in budgetary process pushedFollowing the House leadership’s call to submit amendments to the proposed 2017 P3.35-trillion General Appropriations Act (GAA), Siquijor Rep. Rav Rocamora sought the restoration of the citizens’ participation in the budgetary process. Siquijor Rep. Rav Rocamora has filed an omnibus amendment in Special Provisions that affect Assistance to Disadvantaged Municipalities (ADM) program and a particular provision on the Agricultural Competitiveness Enhancement Fund (ACEF) to push for stronger mechanisms for citizen’s participation. “If we want to enshrine citizen’s participation as a cornerstone of our country’s budgetary process, the only way to do that is to ensure that somehow, the basic sectors are part of the process to craft programs and identify projects to be implemented,” he said. He laments that the Duterte administration scrapped the Bottom-up Budgeting (BUB) Program that systematically gets citizens involved in programs and projects identification. Rocamora introduced a provision for an assembly of people’s and citizens’ organizations to propose projects and elect representatives to Local Poverty Reduction Action Teams (LPRAT).

Source: Manila Bulletin October 09, 2016 14:10 UTC