CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND
Introduction
Over recent decades, many countries have gained experience with
referendums, citizens’ forums, citizens’ juries, collaborative governance, participatory
budgeting, and other models in which citizens have a more direct say.
Citizen participation is usually considered a valuable element of democratic
citizenship and democratic decision-making. Many theorists claim that citizen
participation has positive effects on the quality of democracy.
COA’s three-year (2011-2014) strategic planning exercise, identified
transparency and openness to citizen participation as key facets of its own priority
reform agenda. The public audit process is an important part of the compact between
citizens and the state to ensure government programs are effectively and efficiently
implemented and corruption and misuse are minimized. The administration’s
commitment to open government highlighted the important role of COA in
communicating and engaging citizens more directly in the audit process.
The Project Management Office of the Commission spearheaded the
implementation of the Citizen Participatory Audit or CPA as a reform strategy and
audit technique to engage civil society organizations (CSOs) and citizens in the
public audit process to improve transparency, efficiency and effectiveness in the use
of public resources. The COA implements the CPA with its civil society partner,
Affiliated Network for Social Accountability in East Asia and the Pacific (ANSA-EAP)
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with funding support from the Australian Government-Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade, The World Bank, and Making All Voices Count (MAVC).
The CPA project was the recipient of the first Open Government Partnership
(OGP) Bright Spots Award during the 2013 Global Summit in London. It is also one of
the twelve commitments under the PH-OGP National Action Plan for 2017-2019.
The CPA project officially started in November 26, 2012 with a Memorandum
of Agreement signed between COA and its civil society partners. The initiative used
constructive engagement as an approach in working with both government and civil
society. In constructive engagement, the key actors are the state and its citizens. To
sustain the approach, spaces for participation have to be created where mutual trust
and openness are required to facilitate meaningful and sustained dialogue and
negotiation.
CPA is defined as COA plus citizens working together to conduct joint audits.
Under this, citizen representatives are included in the team to make government
more effective, transparent, and accountable. While this is always done under the
direct supervision and control of COA, under CPA citizens and citizen groups are not
outsiders. Rather, they sit on the same table, and are given the same powers and
responsibilities as that of the state auditors.
In terms of numbers, it is also important to note that in 2011, the Commission
on Audit only had about 7,000 state auditors that examine financial transactions of
more than 61,000 government agencies. That meant that each auditor has to
examine all the transactions of 9 agencies, making it virtually impossible for them to
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carry out their work each year. The magnitude and amount of daily transactions and
the limited number of auditors has made public audit an overwhelming task.
Theoretical Framework
Citizen participation is a process which provides private individuals an
opportunity to influence public decisions and has long been a component of the
democratic decision-making process. The roots of citizen participation can be traced
to ancient Greece and Colonial New England. Before the 1960s, governmental
processes and procedures were designed to facilitate "external" participation. Citizen
participation was institutionalized in the mid-1960s with President Lyndon Johnson's
Great Society programs (Cogan & Sharpe, 1986 p. 283).
Public involvement is means to ensure that citizens have a direct voice in
public decisions. The terms "citizen" and "public," and "involvement" and
"participation" are often used interchangeably. While both are generally used to
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indicate a process through which citizens have a voice in public policy decisions, both
have distinctively different meanings and convey little insight into the process they
seek to describe. Mize reveals that the term "citizen participation" and it's relationship
to public decision-making has evolved without a general consensus regarding either
it's meaning nor it's consequences (Mize, 1972).
Many agencies or individuals choose to exclude or minimize public
participation in planning efforts claiming citizen participation is too expensive and
time consuming. Yet, many citizen participation programs are initiated in response to
public reaction to a proposed project or action. However, there are tangible benefits
that can be derived from an effective citizen involvement program. Cogan and
Sharpe (1986, p. 284) identify five benefits of citizen participation to the planning
process:
1. Information and ideas on public issues;
2. Public Support for planning decisions;
3. Avoidance of protracted conflicts and costly delays;
4. Reservoir of good will which can carry over to future decisions; and
5. Spirit of cooperation and trust between the agency and the public.
Statement of the Problem
The general purpose of the study is to determine the effectiveness of the Citizen
Participatory Audit (CPA) of the Commission on Audit in promoting transparency,
accountability and good governance in the implementation of various government
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programs and projects. In particular, the researcher aims to answer the following
detailed inquiries:
1. What is the impact of the Citizen Participatory Audit (CPA) in the overall
mandate of Commission on Audit as a Constitutional Commission?
2. Is there a significant difference on the perceived transparency between the
government programs audited through CPA and programs not audited
through CPA?
3. Is there a significant difference on the perceived accountability between the
government programs audited through CPA and programs not audited
through CPA?
4. Is there a significant difference on the perceived good governance between
the government programs audited through CPA and programs not audited
through CPA?
Hypothesis
1. The program Citizen Participatory Audit (CPA) has no impact in the overall
mandate of COA as a Constitutional Commission.
2. There is no significant difference on the perceived transparency between the
government programs audited through CPA and programs not audited through
CPA.
3. There is no significant difference on the perceived accountability between the
government programs audited through CPA and programs not audited through
CPA.
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4. There is no significant difference on the perceived good governance between
the government programs audited through CPA and programs not audited
through CPA.
Significance of the Study
The CPA is a pilot project that aims to involve citizens in the challenging task
of auditing government programs and projects. It is an embodiment of an ideal social
accountability initiative because it has the cooperation of both government and
citizen groups. No less than COA’s top leadership welcomes and supports it while a
regional facility, ANSA-EAP Foundation (an institution incubated in the Ateneo
School of Government), serves as intermediary for civil society advocates and
community and citizen organizations. The CPA experience indeed is a good case
study on constructive engagement. It demonstrates the process of a government
agency opening up to citizen groups, learning their ways and adjusting government
practices to accommodate citizens’ voices. On the other hand, it also showcased the
expanding appreciation of how citizen groups understood COA’s mandate and
processes. Together, they embarked on a journey on learning how to use their
differences to strengthen each other.
New as it is, the CPA project shines brightly because it highlights the
importance of government championing this kind of engagement. Leadership, in the
person of COA Chair Grace Pulido-Tan, became crucial in steering the direction of
CPA as a flagship project of COA. It responded to the President’s call for greater
transparency and citizen participation in governance. By continuing to partner with
citizens in conducting performance/compliance audits and availing of citizen
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partnerships in other areas, the COA gives more voice to citizens and empowers
them to become more actively involved in activities to improve good governance.
Experience showed that involving citizens in the public audit processes tend to make
auditee agencies more compliant with audit recommendations thereby resulting in
improved quality in the delivery of services.