IMPLEMENTING PARTNER: ECOLINK
YEARS: 2008-2009
GRANT AMOUNT: $27,500
THEME: Local Governance
The Anti-Corruption and Transparency Project II is an initiative of the ECOLINK Philippines. It seeks to follow the same framework as the first initiative. Only it has further developed the specific approaches in most monitoring and awareness activities based on the lessons learned and success of the first one.
The first initiative has achieved the targets as defined during the development period and has been considered successful. The initiative has articulated well and achieved its goal and objectives. It has extensively increased citizen participation to a quantitative and qualitative degree more than it has originally looked forward to. It has effectively reduced gasoline expenditures of the City Government of Oroquieta including local offices of national line agencies and Barangay LGU’s more than its targeted amount at appraisal stage. It has totally eradicated gasoline reselling and totally reduced vehicle misuse of government officials and employees. The project has also effectively caused the City Government to undertake steps in complying with procurement laws especially on the aspects of CSO representation in bidding processes, posting and publication of bidding documents, and accessibility of documents. The advocacy components have empowered the citizenry to speak and expose corrupt practices in their respective communities and experiences. It has also reinforced existing campaigns of government agencies like the Office of the Ombudsman. It has also triggered the formulation of policy reforms responsive to issues covered by the project. In addition to, it has been able to address several specific corruption issues and public concerns other than involving government vehicles. It has raised the commitment and sense of ownership among people’s organizations, youth organizations, non-governmental organizations and concerned individuals to the cause of curbing corruption at all levels of the bureaucracy.
But a lot of activities should be pursued to concretize and sustain the gains of the first project. And this project sooner or later may provide the ground for a nationwide campaign to curb corruption in the local governments particularly in the use and maintenance of government vehicles. This project is, therefore, a very timely one.
In Oroquieta City, activities are focused on strengthening the gains of the past project. This includes capacitating the Citizen’s Coalition against Corruption and raising the awareness of city officials and employees on the proper ethics of vehicle use as defined in the newly-passed ordinance setting the guidelines on the use and management of LGU vehicles.
In Pagadian City and Dipolog City where problems specified below are very obvious, interventions will focus on all aspects including Expenditure Monitoring, Vehicle Use Monitoring, IEC/ Advocacies, Capacity-building of CSO’s and the Establishment of a Transparency Network (Pagadian), and Institutional and Policy Reforms.
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