our Research
budget natin: a guidebook for engaging the philippine budget cycle
Together with the 9 Young Budget Leaders Program fellows, we co-designed a guidebook called Budget Natin: A Guidebook for Engaging The Philippine Budget Cycle which documents the learnings from the budget advocacy training and from our organizers who shared their own personal experiences fighting for their sectors' own budget.
The guidebook uses simplified language to explain how public budgeting works in both local and national government.
empowering citizens to build better bike lanes through open contracting
Learning from advocates and previous open contracting reform experiences, we propose ways for government and civil society to collaborate in improving transparency, participation, accountability mechanisms towards building trust in the procurement system, including: opening up contracting datasets, strengthening the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System as a government institution, drafting new commitments to the Open Government Partnership National Action Plan, and building a procurement integrity movement.
making together work: support for coalition advocacy learning and engagement in good governance
Coalition building has been discussed extensively in the fields of collective impact, social work, social change, multiparty negotiation and mediation, sociology and anthropology, economics, civil society, and state relations, among other fields, but there is scant literature on Filipino cases of local coalition-building practitioners who navigate the complex political landscape in the Philippines.
This guidebook, featuring Filipino case studies that offer action-oriented lessons, skills, and cultural notes, is our team’s attempt to bridge this gap and share what we have learned.
hunger project
There is a need to transition to a circular food system to address hunger and nutrition in the Philippines. This research attempts to determine where and how to begin by asking: What potential entry points can nutrition security stakeholders pursue to jumpstart the transition to a circular food system?
data for empowerment
Taking a view of empowerment as political participation, the report investigates bright spots in the country’s quest to maximize the power of data for social and economic progress, specifying case studies in the fields of public transport, customs, national and local taxation, public procurement, education, civil service, and freedom of information.
bilang tao: everyone should count
Birth registration is so critical to eradicating extreme poverty that is considered a key success indicator for the sixteenth sustainable development goal on promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and providing access to justice for all. But globally, one in every four, or 166 million children under the age of five are unregistered, according to UNICEF. This is a “scandal of invisibility” which is also present in the Philippines, where anywhere from 5 to 7.5 million Filipinos, of whom 40 percent are children, do not have birth certificates, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority and the Child Rights Network.
In a research authored by Jesha Villasis and Ken Abante of Wesolve, they find the many barriers to birth registration — three critical ones are cost, conflict, and the unintended consequences of penalizing childbirth at home.
strengthening procurement
To explore how public procurement during the pandemic was done in the Philippines, researchers study a novel dataset on COVID-related government contracts worth PHP 20 billion (USD 400 million), representing nearly 60% of the total value of publicly available contracts as of August 2020.
related research
mobility policies and budgets in the philippines: a guidebook for advocates in 2022
Mobility advocates can change the system of mobility in the Philippines by engaging the budget process. In this guidebook, we identify P13.3 billion in confirmed funding sources, P275 billion in potential funding pools, and ten policies which mobility advocates can use to more effectively engage in: (a) the implementation of this year's mobility programs, (b) the 2022 elections, and (c) the 2023 national budget cycle, to improve the welfare of pedestrians, cyclists, commuters, and transport workers in the Philippines.
the systemic shortage in philippine public transportation
The Philippines has a massive transportation shortage, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. In pursuit of a more efficient and sustainable use of public funds, we recommend a better balance for a better normal: a shift in the country's infrastructure pipeline to include more active transport infrastructure promoting walking and cycling, as well as expanding road-based public transport modes through public utility vehicle gross-cost service contracting, bus rapid transit investments, and other complementary infrastructure to create sustainable cities.
move people, not just cars
We studied the Philippine government budget and audit documents over the past decade to understand how infrastructure and public transport budget priorities may have caused the massive public transport shortage made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that the national government has budgeted too much on roads and not enough on the people, plants, and animals who use our roads as public spaces. This car-centric approach to infrastructure development has had a deleterious effect on urban mobility. A case example is Metro Manila, where road-based public transport trips have collapsed.
budget recommendations: better balance for a better normal
The 2022 budget should be used to fill a Php150-billion gap in investments in road-based public transport, pedestrian, and cycling infrastructure. This shift will address the massive shortage in transport supply made worse by the pandemic. An overwhelming majority of Filipinos across age, sex, education, geography, and socioeconomic class support this shift: 87% of Filipinos believe that our roads “will be better off if public transport, bicycles, and pedestrians are given priority over private vehicles” (SWS, 2020). These investments will improve outcomes for our pandemic response, public health, a just and green economic recovery, road safety, equity, accessibility, wellbeing, and the environment. A better normal requires a better spending mix.