As a member of the Makabayan bloc, a coalition of progressive parties that I look up to and admire and have voted for in a number of elections (disclosure: I have alternated between Akbayan and Bayan Muna in my party list votes through the years except when I was an OFW when I consistently voted for Migrante), I would have thought that Rep. Ridon would understand the rationale and support the concept of Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process (formerly Bottom-up Budgeting). The mechanism gives a chance to basic sectors to actually influence the budget by making them identify their priority probelms and issues and making sure that interventions to address them are designed, funded, and implemented. However, I do get the risks of politicizing GPB. In fact, that is its worst enemy because if people see it as nothing but an election tool for the candidate of the Liberal Party, its dead on the water and will be so discredited that we wont recognize the soundness, I would even say beauty of the idea. How to mitigate then this risk? Three words - transparency, transparency. Transparency must be enabled particularly by independent monitoring by well-known institutions, probably universities, that have solid credentials of objectivity and independence. Transparency must be characterized by multiple-stakeholder processes that allow for meaningful participation of critics and the opposition. Transparency should be incorporated in all stages of the GPB process so nothing, absolutely nothing slips. If this does not happen, and there is a perception that GPB is an election ploy, sadly that will taint the program and will probably abandoned in the next administration if the Liberal Party candidate loses.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 22:53:12 +0000
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