Orange-clad members of the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI), the hundred-strong network of social development budget advocates, trooped to the Philippine Senate to show support and celebrate victory as Senator Teofisto Guingona III delivers his sponsorship speech on the Senate Bill 2857 or the Act institutionalizing people’s participation in the budget process.
“This is a triumph of cooperation between citizens’ groups and legislators. For six years, Social Watch Philippines and the ABI, has been cooperating with, instead of confronting, Senators and Congressmen for a more people-oriented national budget,” said former national treasurer Leonor Magtolis Briones, lead convenor of Social Watch Philippines (SWP) which organizes the ABI.
“With SBN 2857, I hope to harmonize Professor Leonor Magtolis Briones’ definition of people in governance as ‘the expression of citizenship and the collective exercise of power of the organized disadvantaged basic sector to advance people’s interests’ with the government’s commitment to the greater good, through participatory budgeting,” said Senator Guingona III.
Senate Bill Number 2857 or the “Act Institutionalizing the Participation of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in the Preparation and Authorization Process of the Annual National Budget, Providing Effective Mechanisms Therefore, and Other Purposes”, grants rights and entitlements to accredited groups such as proposing alternative budgets and alternative sources of financing.
SWP has been helping Sen. Guingona III, when he was still a Congressman, and Quezon Representative Lorenzo Tanada III in drafting and finalizing the bill on people’s participation in budgeting. This has been an integral component of SWP’s 6-year ABI campaign, in which nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and their partner legislators worked together to formulate and propose alternative budget proposals for increases in the annual national budgets for health, agriculture, education and environment.
“We are now confident that there will be no resistance from Government agencies on involving citizens’ groups in the preparation of their budgets because SBN 2857 will mandate them to consult the people in the formulation of their budgets,” Briones said. “This is a landmark in history that should every Filipino should celebrate,” she added. -30- Leonor Magtolis Briones
