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LOCAL
civil society organizations (CSOs) and former government
officials have now deemed the rampant and, at times,
blatant graft and corruption practices in the national
government as beyond repair, and are focusing their
energies toward improving local government units (LGUs),
seeing this as a better use of their time and resources.
With
this, CSOs led by the Philippine Rural Reconstruction
Movement (PRRM) and select former government officials,
such as former economic minister Sixto Roxas, have
founded the Citizen’s Movement for Good Governance (CMGG).
PRRM
president and CMGG interim secretary general Conrado
Navarro said the CMGG will focus on helping LGUs become
more transparent and accountable, as well as practice
sustainable development in all their undertakings.
CMGG
will be doing this through close monitoring of projects
and encouraging civil society, in general, to be part of
provincial or city planning. The organization will also
extend its knowledge to create suitable projects and
programs that will help local communities combat poverty
and environmental degradation.
“We need
to focus on LGUs. [The national government is hopeless.
We need to help the local government because they hold
the future of the country],” Roxas said in his statement
at the launch of the CMGG on Thursday in Quezon City.
The launch also coincided with the 56th anniversary of
the PRRM.
As its
first order of business, Navarro said the CMGG will
organize the group through PRRM’s 13 chapters scattered
nationwide. Their first mandate is to train new CMGG
members on how to monitor government projects from the
design to the budgetary requirements down to the
expenses.
The CMGG
will also encourage all LGUs to create a web site
listing all projects, including their completion rates
and costs. Also in the pipeline is the creation of local
radio stations and newspapers that will give regular
updates of local projects.
In terms
of financing, Navarro said while the CMGG or the PRRM
will not be able to extend financial support for LGUs,
they are willing to tap sources of funding that can help
LGUs put up the financial requirements they need.
Navarro
said this could be done through a grant-matching scheme
where the CMGG will share a portion of the amount while
the rest of the financial need will be sourced through
LGU-funding.
He
explained that an example would be putting up a web site
for P10,000. The CMGG will shoulder half of the cost
while the other half is the local counterpart.
“We need
to urge LGUs to come up with their own websites similar
to Naga City’s web site which contains the progress,
budgets, among others, of local projects. We will help
them put up their own local media and newspapers to help
them voice out what they want to say. We will offer
training for CMGGs in cities and provinces,” Navarro
said.
Former
National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) chief
Cielito Habito, a founding member of CMGG, would also
include in the CMGG agenda the boosting of productivity
in the agriculture and tourism sectors, which, he said,
is where most Filipinos will be able to find more jobs.
He said
3 million Filipinos are unemployed, and he blamed
policies that are unfriendly to the agriculture and
tourism sectors, such as the underinvestment of the
government in agriculture and the still-to-be-approved
open skies policy.
Meanwhile, former public works secretary Vicente Jayme
said the creation of the CMGG is timely, saying he
believed that through it, civil society, in general, can
also reach out and support government employees who are
not corrupt and who also want to implement change in
their locale.
“There
are people in government who are good but do not get
support. If groups [like CMGG] will support these
people, a lot of change can be done,” Jayme said. |
