Taguig City: The government will institutionalize the digitalization, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of the Public Financial Management (PFM) processes, to make the budget system ‘more transparent,’ Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said Thursday. ‘We will institutionalize our monitoring and evaluation and the digitalization in our PFM processes,’ Pangandaman said in a press conference on the sidelines of the 2025 Open Government Partnership (OGP) Asia and the Pacific Regional Meeting (APRM).
According to Philippines News Agency, the PFM Reforms Roadmap 2024-2029, launched in September 2024, addresses 11 strategic focus areas that cover all aspects of public financial management. These include planning and budgeting linkage; cash management; public asset management; accounting and auditing; PFM capacity-building; digital PFM; PFM policy and legal framework; public procurement; disaster risk and management; PFM for local government units; and monitoring and evaluation for public expenditure.
Pangandaman stated the 11 key areas contained in the PFM Reforms Roadmap 2024-2028 are crucial in promoting budget transparency. ‘We are already working on our systems and applications for our Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) and our Budget Treasury Management System (BTMS),’ she said. The roadmap aims to expedite the IFMIS and the BTMS to ensure seamless and efficient government transactions.
Budget Undersecretary Rolando Toledo, functional group head of the Budget Preparation and Execution Group, noted that the Philippines is ‘already leading the fiscal transparency initiative,’ citing the 2023 Open Budget Survey results which showed that the Philippines secured the top spot for budget transparency in Asia and sixth spot in the world for budget oversight. Toledo acknowledged the need to learn best practices from other countries to enhance budget transparency.
The Philippines, which hosts the 2025 OGP-APRM, is one of eight founding members of the OGP, along with Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Norway, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The OGP comprises 75 member countries, 106 local governments, civil society organizations (CSOs), and multilateral partners. Established in 2011, the OGP seeks to promote transparency and accountability, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance among member countries.
Paul Maassen, ad interim chief executive of OGP, highlighted the need for institutional and civic engagement to ensure the continuity of OGP reforms. ‘Countries can make surer that reforms are institutionalized through law for example or through policies. I think the Philippines’ Executive Order (EO) No. 31 is a good example,’ Maassen said. EO 31, issued by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. in June 2023, institutionalized the Philippine OGP as a multi-stakeholder partnership.
Philippine OGP co-chairperson Aurora Chavez emphasized the importance of localizing the OGP national commitments. ‘As much as possible, we try to bring it down to the local because as I’ve said, I believe that the most natural starting point of OGP is at the local and I believe also in locally-led development. Most of the targets or commitments here in the national, we get their accomplishments at the local,’ she said.
