Opening Statement of Senator TG Guingona
during the joint hearing of Committee on Finance and Committee on Constitutional Amendments, Revisions of Codes and Laws Regarding the Senate Bill 2186-

"AN ACT INSTITUTIOINALIZING THE PARTICIPATION OF BONA FIDE PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATION AND NON-GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS IN THE DELIBERATION OF THE ANNUAL BUDGET IN CONGRESS AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNITS, PROVIDING EFFECTIVE MECHANISMS THEREFOR, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES" (Introduced by Sen. TG Guingona) February 22,2010

Good Morning Everyone. Thank you for coming. This bill with regards to People's Participation in the budget is a bill that happened a long time ago in line with the principles of openness and transparency under a democratic system which we, I supposed to be under. One of the last laws that still has the spirit of Proclamation 1081 is our budget laws because even the administrative order under which the budget laws are presently crafted had been copied a lot from PD 1177 The underlined principles of PD1177 is secrecy that government officials being the technocrats have the expertise and capabilities and that the public should be informed only in a need to know basis. Those are the underlying principles of PD1177 which was born out of a Martial Law regime.

This bill should have been enacted into law right after EDSA when we were liberated from the shackles of Martial Law. However, for whatever reason they did not materialized and now we are faced with the still nagging need for openness and transparency. People have the right to participate on how their money should be spent. This bill right now has been filed in the previous congress in the House of Representatives. However, instead of the bill being heard because of the political atmosphere at that time, the bill was promptly impounded by the administration at that time. Now, we have a new administration and we refilled this bill, this time in the senate.

I am very heartened to know that there is a counterpart bill filled by Congressman Tanada. This bill right now takes into account peoples participation in the authorization phase. The bill in congress has been modified and I agree that it should be participation in all phases of the budget cycle; preparation, execution and accountability.

I would like to state that we should amend the bill to include all phases of the budget cycle. Now that the present administration is very proactive with regards to openness and transparency. I think this bill should be, as soon as possible, dapat na gawin batas para sa taumbayan.

Thank you.