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Official Publication of the Philippine Information Agency Bicol Regional Office, in cooperation with the RIAC-REDIRAS - RDC Bicol



Thursday, August 22, 2013

Gubat, PCCED launch bottom up budgeting system for LGU

GUBAT, Sorsogon, August 22 (PIA) -- The municipal government here and the Philippine Center for Civic Education and Democracy (PCCED) launched the bottom up budgeting (BUB) system project for the local government here to encourage civic society participate in planning  programs and projects and in the budgeting process.

PCCED executive director Reynald Trillana said BUB, also known as "participatory budgeting" is one of the two components of PCCED’s program in Gubat town that aims to make the municipal budgeting process more inclusive and participatory by allowing ordinary citizens to deliberate and propose spending ideas to the local government unit (LGU) so that the budget reflects the real need of the community.

PCCED is pursuing the "Promoting Democratic Values in the Barangays of Gubat" program in Gubat.

“While there are other models of participatory budgeting, what we are doing here in Sorsogon is a program that is as close as possible to direct democracy. Here the people themselves decide how to spend their money,” he said.

He added that the program also hopes to educate people on the intricacies of public budgeting and make them meaningful participants in governance.

Gubat Mayor Roderick “Nonong” Co meanwhile said that the local government has aspired to become a model and center of participatory leadership or governnance in the country.

“We aim to inspire the people to work together for the community, especially those who, in one way or another, faced obstacles to participation and disillusioned by politics,” he said.

Participatory budgeting is a program developed in Porto Alegre, Spain that has been adopted by many local governments all over the world including New York, Chicago, New Zealand, Senegal, and South Korea.

The program is supported by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID) through Asociacion Zabalketa, a Spain based NGO.

Over the past years, AECID has been supporting projects that would strengthen democracy and its institutions in the Philippines.

On the same event, Globe Telecom Inc. distributed communication equipment and insurance to the barangays as part of its program to strengthen local government’s “Sagot Ka ni Kap!”.

“Sagot Ka Ni Kap!” is part of Globe BridgeCom's nationwide initiative to help communities prevent crime in their areas by providing communication and relevant law enforcement equipment including mobile phones and SIMs, hand-held radios, uniform shirts, tear gas, boots, flashlights, raincoats, and handcuffs to the local community police auxiliary units or barangay tanods.

PCCED and Globe Bridging Communities have partnered for Barangay Rule of Law Program and Project Citizen.

The Barangay Rule of Law Program of PCCED is anchored on the belief that the barangay, the basic political component in the country, should function as a “school for citizenship” incorporating democratic values, skills, habits and dispositions as they perform their task as peacekeepers of the community.

Project Citizen teaches young people how democracy actually works by training high school students in seeking public policy interventions to solve community problems. It is an international program for increasing the democratic participation, political efficacy, and civic engagement levels of students at the middle and high school levels. (MAL/BAR/JELansang-PCCED/PIA5)

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