Alternative Budget Initiative

People's participation, transparency and accountability in the national budget process

The first year of implementation of the ABI was a landmark in the history of the Philippine budget system. Nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and peoples’ organizations (POs) formally entered the halls of congress and the senate to lobby for a budget proposal that puts social services at top priority and eliminates unreasonably big and vague budgetary allotment.

Due to the constructive interventions by CSOs in the national budget process, education and health services where given better allocations. The National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), in its MDG Report in 2007, reported that the alternative budget advocacy for 2007 resulted in an increase of P22.7 billion in additional proposals for MDG-related activities and an approval of the PhP5.5 billion for the 2007 national budget for social services.

Meanwhile, the ABI Campaign for the 2008 budget resulted to P6.3 billion increases for social services. This translates to more allocations for MDG related targets on health, agriculture, environment and education. For 2009, ABI was able to push for P7.7 billion additional allocations for social development.

The ABI Campaign is led by Social Watch Philippines which has been campaigning for financing for development for more than six years already, especially in pushing for better allocations for expenditures related to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The Alternative Budget Initiative is a peoples’ crusade for a participatory, transparent and accountable budget system. It creates a vigilant community composed of private and government persons who are (1) aware of the national budget process, (2) are able to monitor and analyze the implementation of the budget, and (3) are able to constructively engage in the budget process. They are equipped with alternative budget proposals which ensure that development trickle down the grassroots level.

The right of civil society organizations to participate and intervene in the national budget process is mandated by Section 15 and 16, Article XIII of the Constitution that states that “the State shall respect the role of the independent people’s organizations to enable the people to pursue and protect, within democratic framework their legitimate and collective interests and aspirations through peaceful means” and that “the right of the people and their organizations to effective and reasonable participation at all levels of social, political and economic decision-making shall not be abridged”.

The democratic exercise in the national budget process -- which is now being sustained through alternative budget proposals provided by the ABI consortium every year and the ever-widening alliance of legislators and CSOs fighting for better allocations for social services -- is a practice that should be institutionalized.

This is crucial in breaking an era of an executive-controlled budget process in the country where the President proposes, approves, implements and monitors the budget. This system is put in place by a Presidential Decree during the dictatorial era of Ferdinand E. Marcos.

Now, through the ABI, a new era in the Philippine budget system is being institutionalized – where pro-active people’s participation in the national budget process puts the “power of the purse” in the hands of the people.

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