My heartfelt greetings and warmest welcome to our fellow champions and advocates of open government and good governance!
Assalamu alaikum wa Raḥmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
First, I would like to thank you all for being present here today and engaging in this collaborative event—the Commitment Outcomes Design Workshop, which is a new feature in the design process of the 6th Philippine Open Government Partnership or PH-OGP National Action Plan—our country’s first ever medium-term open government action plan. I am very pleased to know that we have a strong number of allies in rallying the open government cause in the country.
As you may know, we just achieved an important milestone—the recent institutionalization of PH-OGP which we initiated and which the President has made official through Executive Order No. 31, series of 2023.
So this is just the beginning of our journey of togetherness for this Action Plan and PH-OGP.
In all of our open government undertakings, we have been operating under the principle that collaboration among government, civil society, and other stakeholders is at the heart of the OGP process. We want collaboration in all aspects and facets of institutionalizing the PH-OGP, including the co-creation, implementation, and monitoring of our action plan. As such, we are purposefully designing the co-creation process to allow our stakeholders to provide ideas and feedback, identify priorities, and propose action plan commitments.
According to the Independent Reporting Mechanism on “Why OGP Commitments Fall Behind,” published in 2017, on the government side, the effective implementation of open government reforms begins in the design phase. Thus, your participation is crucial in ensuring that our national commitments can be realized.
We hope that through this Commitment Outcomes Design Workshop, we can provide you with technical assistance in identifying thematic outcomes and observing symmetry across commitment designs—enabling us to produce a substantial, coherent, and responsive ‘zero draft’ of the 6th PH-OGP National Action Plan.
Furthermore, I hope everyone here today is empowered by the fact that more than being a participant of this workshop, we are taking part in a bigger movement that transforms our advocacy of participatory governance towards transparency, accountability and integrity into action. Beyond action plans, we also hold the power to transform the lives of our fellow Filipinos through open government. Hence, let us always keep our advocacy close to our hearts and closer to the people. Let us be ambitious yet grounded—just like how open governments should be.
Maraming salamat po. Wabillahi Tawfiq Wal Hidaya, Wasalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu.
