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PhP 1-B envi gains in 2013 national budget hailed; more allocations in 2014 eyed |
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ZAMBOTIMES February 28, 2013 — related undertakings as a result of dialogues by citizens’ groups with the government, and more allocations are expected in the 2014 national budget by utilizing participatory budgeting process. This was noted today by development organization La Liga Policy Institute, convening organization of the Environment Cluster of Social Watch Philippines - Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI), a consortium of 60 citizens’ groups including non-government organizations and individual advocates crafting and pushing alternative budget proposals aimed at increasing social spending for marginalized sectors and concerns. “The ABI Envi Cluster held several dialogues with, among others, the Departments of Environment and Natural Resources and of Budget and Management as well as the House of Representatives and the Senate, and pushed proposals on environment management and protection addressing climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and management, and related measures, and a significant number of these proposals were adopted and integrated in the 2013 GAA signed by President Noynoy Aquino last December,” said La Liga President and Managing Director Roland Cabigas. Read More |
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LGUs gain disaster risk-mgm’t partner |
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PEOPLE'S JOURNAL Wednesday, February 20, 2013 THE COUNTRY’S first alliance of local government units on disaster risk reduction and management continues to gain wide support, this time, securing a partnership with The Asia Foundation-Philippines. Called the Alliance of Seven LGUs, this grouping comprises Metro Ma¬nila’s Quezon City, Marikina, and Pasig together with Rizal province’s Antipolo city and the municipalities of Cainta, Rodriguez, and San Mateo – all linked to the Marikina watershed as their common ecosystem. TAF is co-financing the four month project: “Enhancing the oper-ational framework, capacities and mechanisms for disaster risk management of the A7 LGUs,” said Roland Cabigas, president and managing director of socio-economic think tank La Liga Policy Institute which serves as the alliance’s secretariat. “Routine floods and landslides during heavy rains, and then the 2009 typhoon Ondoy onslaught, all attributed in large part to the deteriorated condition of the Marikina watershed, had severely affected the residents, the economy, and the overall development efforts in these localities. The concerned LGUs, cognizant of the limitations of singular approaches, thus formed the A7 as an ‘inter-local cooperation and partnership’ to enhance the individual and collective capacities of member LGUs on DRRM,” Cabigas said. |
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LGUs, foundation team up for disaster response project |
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PHILSTAR.COM February 19, 2013 MANILA, Philippines - Local governments and international group The Asia Foundation (TAF) will undertake a project to improve the way the public prepares and responds to disasters. TAF will support a four-month project designed to enhance the operational framework, capacities and mechanisms for disaster risk management of seven local governments. The beneficiaries of the project are local governments that belong to the Alliance of Seven (A7) namely Quezon City, Marikina and Pasig in Metro Manila and Antipolo city, Cainta, Rodriguez and San Mateo in Rizal province. All the seven areas are linked to the Marikina watershed as their common ecosystem. Roland Cabigas, president of La Liga Policy Institute, which serves as A7’s secretariat, said the project would involve strategic consultations and workshops among local governments, citizen groups and institutions. The aim is to localize disaster risk reduction management plans and to enhance public awareness about them. Cabigas said the routine floods and landslides have contributed to the deterioration of the Marikina watershed and in turn affected the residents and the development of various areas. Read more |
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SWP’s Briones lauds fund reallocation in 2013 budget |
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BUSINESS MIRROR December 20, 2012 The reallocation of P22-billion fund from the Priority Social and Economic Projects Fund (PSEPF) back to departments in the 2013 National Budget is a welcome development, Social Watch Philippines (SWP) lead convener Leonor Magtolis Briones said on Thursday. Briones, Kaakbay Party-list first nominee, said, however, there is much to be done to regain the crucial budget items in the remaining P269-billion special purpose funds and P117-billion unprogrammed funds back to the departments. These are huge funds which are allocated for “special purposes” and itemized in ambiguous terms. These funds could also be transferred to other programs sans Congressional approval, she said. President Aquino signed the 2013 National Budget on Wednesday, earmarking P2 trillion to finance government operations next year. Briones, who also heads the internationally recognized Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI), a network of over 100 civil-society organizations led by SWP, said the rush to get approval of the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2013 hardly gave them enough time to conduct substantive scrutiny and effect important changes in the budget.Read more here. |
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Alaminos devt council passes landmark Citizens' Agenda measure |
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December 11 , 2012 THE Local Development Council (LDC) of Alaminos City in Pangasinan province recently passed a landmark resolution mandating the institutionalization of citizen's direct and active participation in identifying and planning local programs, projects and activities, and in allocating local government unit's budget for these. The resolution recommends to the City Council the approval of proposed City Ordinance entitled " Institutionalizing the preparation of Citizens' Agenda in the annual preparation of the Annual Investment Plan (AIP) in the City of Alaminos." It defined Citizen's Agenda as "the list of proposed programs and projects that embodies the needs and aspiration identified by the general citizens of Alaminos City through non-government organizations, peoples' organizations and other civil society organization." The development came on the heels of the completion of a special phase of the National Anti-Poverty Commission - Empowerment for the Poor Program (NAPC- EPP) jointly implemented by Alaminos LGU and development non-government organization La Liga Policy Institute. The program facilitated a process compose of a series of planning sessions and workshops among the city's basic sectors, in which at least 160 groups of farmers, fishers, youth, woman, parent-leaders, elderly, tricycle drivers, public utility jeepney drivers, market vendors, professionals, small businesses, and religious groups from among Catholics, Christians and Muslims participated. |
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December 06, 2012 The partnership couldn't have come at a better time. While Mindanao is smarting from the devastation of the strongest super-typhoon to hit the resource-rich but largely underdeveloped region, a public-private partnership initiative has been launched to boost the mobilization disaster-mitigation funds. While the government may indeed have the superstructure for rapid mobilization of resources -manpower, monetary, and material - a non-government partner comes in hand to enhance the efficiency of such massive operation. Thus, we loud the Department of the Interior and Local Government and NGO La Liga Policy Institute in forging a partnership agreement aimed to boost local government units' effective use of the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund. Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Austere Panadero signed the agreement for the utilization of its Civil Society Participation Fund by La Liga, one of 12 NGOs chosen by the agency as partners for its maiden implementation of the special fund utility. A component of the agency's social accountability mechanism Local Government Watch launched by the late Secretary Jesse Robredo, the CSPF provides an enabling instrument for citizen's groups' 'participation in public decision-making processes and to strengthen local government-civil society collaboration towards the formation of engaging and development outcome-oriented local governance.' "we laud DILG, especially Secretary Mar Roxas, for continuing and, more so, expanding the legacy of the late Secretary Robredo in tapping NGOs and citizen's groups as partners of agency in implementing its programs and mandate for strengthening LGUs and their services to constituents," La Liga managing director Roland Cabigas said. |
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Project to boost local govt's utilization of disaster funds |
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BUSINESS MIRROR December 06, 2012 THE Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) is embarking on a project to enhance the utilization of the Local Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund (LDRRMF) of several local governments in Metro Manila and Rizal. The department recently forged ties with the La Liga Policy Institute (La Liga), a development policy research non-government organization, to hold a series of workshops with local chief executives and disaster risk-reduction officers of the members of the Alliance of Seven LGUs (A7) based in Metro Manila and Rizal for the project. Undersecretary Austere Panadero signed the agreement for the utilization of its Civil Society Participation Fund (CSPF) by La Liga, one of the 12 non-government organizations chosen by the agency as partners in its maiden implementation of the special fund utility. A component of the agency's social accountability mechanism Local Government Watch (LG Watch) launch by the late Secretary Jesse Robredo, the CSPF provides an enabling instrument for citizen's groups' "Participation in public decision-making processes and to strengthen local government-civil society collaboration toward the formation of engaging and development outcome-oriented local governance." Roland Cabigas, managing director of La Liga lauded Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas ll, for continuing and expanding the legacy of his predecessor in tapping citizen's groups as partners in implementing the agency's programs. Under the agreement, La Liga will use the funds in its project, " Making the LDRRMF Work Through the Alliance of Seven [A7] LGUs," in Quezon City, Antipolo, Marikina, Pasig, Cainta, Rodriguez and San Mateo. Read more here. |
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Lawmakers asked to fund environment-related projects |
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BUSINESS MIRROR September 25, 2012 LAWMAKERS have been asked to deviate from the “business as usual” mode in financing climate-change adaptation (CCA)and disaster risk-reduction (DRR) plans and programs.
La Liga Policy Institute Managing Director Roland Cabigas said funding environment-related projects and programs, considering the impacts of climate change to the Philippines, should be “bold and strategic.”
Cabigas issued the statement as the House of Representatives last week approved on second reading the P2.006-trillion General Appropriations bill (GAB) to finance President Aquino’s midterm development agenda expenditures referred to by Malacañang as an “empowerment budget.” Read more here.
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Critics hit P2t budget for flawed priorities |
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MANILA STANDARD TODAY September 24, 2012 The P2-trillion national budget for 2013 is not responsive to the public clamor for jobs, poverty alleviation and protection from calamities, House leaders and civil society groups said Sunday.
House Minority Leader Danilo Suarez said the dole to the poor was even bigger than the Health Department’s budget, and that no funding was allocated to protect the public from typhoons considering the devastation being wrought by monsoon rain.
The government, Suarez said, had failed to do an “environment scan” on social, economic and health services vis-à-vis the actual public needs. Read more here.
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PEOPLE'S JOURNAL September 23, 2012 Climate change is an extra-ordinary phenomenon.
And since extraordinary problems require extraordinary solutions, standard operating procedures or one-size-fits-all approaches would simply not do the trick.
Climate-change adaptation and disaster risk reduction are decidedly not your run-of-the-mill challenges.
Therefore, the government should not apply the same spending formula to address climate change. Read more here.
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Participatory governance, western-style |
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SUNDAY PUNCH September 10, 2012 Four local government units on this side of Pangasinan – Alaminos City and the municipalities of Bani, Burgos and Dasol – are leading the way in true participatory governance with help from development organization La Liga Policy Institute under the Empowerment of the Poor Program of the National Anti-Poverty Commission (EPP-NAPC). Here, community representatives and local officials have started working together to monitor whether the people’s money is being spent appropriately in line with the implementation of projects listed in the 2012 Annual Investment Plans (AIPs).
The process involves six stages: 1. consensus-building among citizen leaders and LGU officials per town on the selection of project/s with AIP budget line item; 2. the visits and familiarization with concerned LGU offices and project sites; 3. citizen leaders’ review and analysis of related documents; 4. joint session with LGU officials for reflection and feedback; 5. Budget monitoring report preparation; and 6. citizens’ assembly for all project areas to present results and outcome. Read more here.
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Robredo's key advocacies have come to fruition (Feature) |
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BALITA.PH September 9, 2012 Local Government (DILG) Secretary Jesse M. Robredo have now begun to come to fruition, according to many local government unit officials.
Robredo, together with pilot Capt. Jessup Bahinting and Nigerian student-pilot Chand Kshitiz, perished in a plane crash in the sea off Masbate on Aug. 18, 2012.
However, Robredo's legacy of ideal public service and good governance lives on. Robredo has initiated the DILG Seal of Good Housekeeping (SGH) award and incentive system for LGUs exemplifying excellence in good governance, especially in the aspects of planning, fiscal management, transparency, accountability and performance management. Read more here. |
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West Pangasinan begins participatory budget monitoring |
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BUSINESS MIRROR September 4, 2012 TRAILBLAZING citizens’ participation in local governance, various stakeholders in four western Pangasinan towns have set in motion a budget-monitoring system that will help ensure the implementation of various programs to step up local economic development and achieve the local millennium development goals (MDGs).
The participatory budget-monitoring mechanism was set in motion with the help of La Liga Policy Institute, a development research policy nongovernmental organization.
La Liga is a member of the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) and is the convening organization of the group’s environment cluster. Read more here. |
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