e-Participation Through the National Government Portal (PH0050)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?: The Philippine government promotes partnership between the government and its citizens to achieve reforms in the country. However, a government that is disconnected with its citizens often fails to produce effective programs and efficient services.; What is the commitment?: E-Participation in the National Government Portal (www.gov.ph) is a set of online tools that is programmed to redefine the relationship between the government and its citizens. The tools provide access to government information, space for consultation, and a platform for collaboration. E-Participation has three components: 1. E-Information, which arms citizens with open data and public information, without demand; 2. E-Consultation, which engages citizens in contributions and deliberations to public policies and services; 3. E-Decision- Making, which empowers citizens to co-design policies and co-produce government service components; How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?: The National Government portal aims to increase citizen participation in the government’s decision-making and service delivery process by making available e-participation tools to all stakeholders. This promotes and enhances communication and interaction between government and citizens. The intended result of the commitment is to create a socially inclusive government, specifically, making governance more responsive and transparent, creating aligned government priorities to citizen needs, establishing more informed strategies in designing and implementing services to both general and targeted audiences, and creating an effective public policy and service delivery environment.; Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?: Advancements in ICT and the increased availability of multiple and open channels of communication paves the way for increased and widespread participation of citizens in government activities. By leveraging these channels and creating a consolidated platform, we allow both sectors to contribute and collaborate on many aspects – in governance, in policy making, decision making, and in solving complex national problems. The http://www.gov.ph centers on three modes of participation – eInformation, which deals with provision of information on the Internet, e-Consultation, which is about organization of public consultations online, and e-Decision Making, which involves citizens directly in the decision process, all of which are relevant to the OGP values of access to information, civic participation, and technology and innovation for openness and accountability.; Additional information: This is in line with Chapter 5 of the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 on Ensuring People-Centered, Clean, and Efficient Governance.

6. Provide e-Participation tools through the National Government Portal and promote its use to the whole of Government and its citizens.

Commitment text from action plan:

“E-Participation in the National Government Portal (www.gov.ph) is a set of online tools that is programmed to redefine the relationship between the government and its citizens. The tools provide access to government information, space for consultation, and a platform for collaboration. E-Participation has three components:

• E-Information, which arms citizens with open data and public information, without demand;
• E-Consultation, which engages citizens in contributions and deliberations to public policies and services;
• E-Decision- Making, which empowers citizens to co-design policies and co-produce government service components”

Milestones

1. "Launch the http://www.gov.ph with at least five of the top ten priority services of the government
2. A policy for the e-Participation Tools will be written on an IRR for the http://www.gov.ph Executive Order to be signed and endorsed by the President
3. Launch a centralized e-consultation platform on http://www.gov.ph
4. Compliance of the portal with ISO 40500 Level A/WCAG 2.0 Accessibility Guidelines
5. Host the inventory of all publicly available government data and information
6. Upload all National Government Agencies’ data and information on http://www.gov.ph. Government data and information will be onboarded through the FOI portal (www.foi.gov.ph) for government information, and the Open Data portal (data.gov.ph) for government data.
7. 30% of citizens availing of the top 5 priority services used http://www.gov.ph as the entry point to access the service"

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Philippines’ action plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Philippines_-Action-Plan_2017-2019_updated.pdf

Context and Objectives (Commitment Design)

This commitment aimed to enhance citizen participation in governance by providing online participation tools, specifically by making information available and by providing spaces or channels for citizen feedback and inputs to policies and government decisions in one consolidated platform. ^[93]

During previous action plans, low public uptake of participatory and open government mechanisms and tools the government provided has been one of the central findings of IRM reports. ^[94] While there have been mechanisms available for civic participation, there were also many barriers to using them, particularly for poverty-stricken communities with limited resources for engagement in and access to these mechanisms. Technology was deemed to have the potential to support and facilitate citizen engagement in governance, provided some important qualifiers were considered, such as how to respond to citizen need, context, and the capacity of government and civil society. ^[95]

If fully implemented as written, this commitment was expected to have minor potential impact. The commitment addressed how to increase citizen uptake of government participatory mechanisms and tools. While this is an initial step forward to create the space for citizens and governments to engage more directly, the commitment is focused on producing the data and creating interfaces, without actions geared to provide an incentive to use of the platforms. To succeed, technological solutions need to be coupled with actions to ensure effective use.

Commitment Implementation

This commitment’s implementation was limited at the end of the implementation period. The main portal ^[96] was launched in 2017 (milestone 1). However, according to the government’s end-of-term self-assessment report, ^[97] among the areas that this commitment’s implementation fell short were the absence of a policy framework for the e-participation tools (milestone 2), delays in the launch of a centralized e-consultation platform that includes e-participation and e-consultations tools (milestone 3), and the lack of a policy that obliges institutions to release data for the data.gov.ph portal (milestone 6). In general, the absence of policy frameworks seems to have hindered the implementation of the three electronic government initiatives put forward by the commitment (e-information, e-consultation, and e-decision-making).

The commitment opened government marginally. Citizens can access the gov.ph portal and inform themselves about 195 services provided by the government. ^[98] The links to these services, however, are independently run by each state agency and manage information according to each agency’s specific criteria. Main components of the commitment, such as the e-participation tools, had not been implemented by 2019.

Regarding access to information, this commitment had a marginal effect on the level of openness. According to government, at the end of the implementation period, there was still a need to “increase awareness on the use of gov.ph.” Moreover, the government did not provide evidence that the objective included in milestone 7 (“30% of citizens availing of the top 5 priority services used http://www.gov.ph as the entry point to access the service”) had been achieved.

Regarding civic participation, the commitment did not produce changes in government or citizen practices. The commitment was designed as an initial step forward to create a space for citizens and government to engage more directly. However, it fell short because of the absence of an articulating policy framework and its focus on internal administrative procedures and the production of data and interfaces rather than actions that would encourage the use of the platforms. At the end of the implementation period, the e-consultations and e-petitions solutions were not available on the website. ^[99]

Next steps

The IRM shared the following recommendations with stakeholders during the prepublication review period for the design section of this report. They are included below for public record. ^[100]

The IRM suggests that in future action plans this commitment not be carried forward as a standalone commitment. As shown in this report, its potential impact was minor, and its effect on government openness was marginal by the end of the implementation period. Instead, e-participation tools may be instrumental in other commitments with clear policy aims (see recommendation 2 of this report on suggested future topics that should be considered as part of OGP’s action plans).