OGP Openness in Natural Resources Working Group 1

This document summarizes feedback on the Philippines National Action Plan from the Openness on Natural Resources Working Group co-anchors, which includes the World Resources Institute and the Natural Resource Governance Institute. We appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the efforts of the Philippines to deepen its commitment to openness in this critical sector. We are happy to discuss further and to answer any questions.

Commitment #4: Seal of Good Local Governance (SGLG) The expansion of the SGH into the SGLG is a great accomplishment. The Working Group sees

the inclusion of “environmental management” as an opportunity to introduce natural resource

transparency, accountability, and participation at the municipal level. We look forward to

working with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to see how this

component of SGLG might be expanded to include these issues.

Revisions of current NAP:

Civil society should have a role to play in local level assessments as well. For example, Bantay

Kita has developed local level monitoring & assessment tools for use by civil society in measuring

the extent of local government transparency, the effectiveness of local governance structures,

and the accuracy of subnational payments. The tools are intended to be a separate/parallel

initiative to the PH-EITI report.

Opportunities for future NAPs:

One of the ongoing performance indicators for the National Govermentt is “Indicators

enhanced and scaled-up every year.” The “Environmental Management” indicator is currently

somewhat limited to waste management. To enhance this indicator, we suggest including

detailed data disclosure on the natural resource concessions granted within each municipality

for Forestry, Mining, Agriculture, Water Extraction, and Biofuel.

Crossover opportunities with other Commitments:

Include sub-national extractive industry transparency components in SGLG (as is required for

EITI compliance according to the updated EITI standard of January 2015)

Commitment #7: Open Data Philippines (ODP)

The ODP presents a great opportunity to host natural resource information. However, this

commitment is unspecific in its description of which types of data it will include. We realize

that the idea is to include all data, but we would like to get a clearer sense of which issues (and

data sets) have the greatest and most immediate need for transparency and data disclosure.

Philippines National Action Plan: Feedback from the Openness in Natural Resources Working Group

13 July 2015

OGP Openness in Natural Resources Working Group 2

Revisions of current NAP:

In the “relevance” section of this commitment it states: “ODP regularly conducts capacity

building activities such as trainings, boot camps, consultations and developer competitions or

hackathons for government agencies, civil society, academics and the private sector.” This

promotional effort could be included as one of the measurable milestones of the commitment.

Opportunities for future NAPs:

Include a function to allow submissions of data-sets by CSOs. This is an example of a public

participation initiative which essentially outsources the function of information gathering and

aggregation from the government to the citizens.

Prioritize natural resource data sets which have been identified as lacking.

Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs)

Wastewater discharge and air emission permit violations

Extractive industry licenses and permits

Forest use contracts

Crossover opportunities with other Commitments:

PH-EITI reports and all their supporting documents should be produced in a “machine readable”

form and included in ODP.

All SGLG data should be included on ODP as part of its annual assessment procedure.

Commitment #8: Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) As the only explicitly natural resource based commitment, the group applauds the movement

towards EITI compliance and national EITI legislation. We would like to see the EITI move

beyond the compliance standards and address natural resource issues which are nationally

specific to the Philippines.

Revisions of current NAP:

The commitment wording itself could use revision. The EITI now goes well beyond just fiscal

transparency so the commitment could be broader (e.g. Improve extractive sector transparency

and governance).

OGP Openness in Natural Resources Working Group 3

The “Main Objective” section should list the 5 objectives identified by the PH-EITI Multi

Stakeholder Group:

Show direct and indirect contribution of extractives to the economy (through EITI

process)

Improve public understanding of the management of natural resources and availability

of data

Strengthen national resource management / strengthen government systems

Create opportunities for dialogue and constructive engagement in natural resource

management in order to build trust and reduce conflict among stakeholders

Strengthen business environment and increase investments

The “Brief description,” “Relevance,” and “Ambition” sections should be modified to describe

EITI as being about extractive industry transparency in general, rather than specifically about

extractive industry revenues.

Utilization of EITI data shouldn't be only in the civil society checklist. It should also be a key part

of government commitments (e.g. analysis of EITI data when considering policy decisions).

More clarity on the audit of Bantay Kita. It’s not clear who is auditing whom, and why.

Opportunities for future NAPs:

Expansion of EITI reporting into nationally relevant sectors. Suggested sectors include:

Mineral exploration

Cement Industries

Geothermal & Hydro-energy industries

Forestry & Logging

Agriculture (large scale banana, pineapple, and palm oil plantations)

Commitment to produce PH-EITI reports in machine readable open data format so that they

can be added to ODP and other open data initiatives.

Crossover opportunities with other Commitments:

PH-EITI reports and supporting documents should be published on ODP.

PH-EITI should utilize ongoing SGLG indicator enhancement efforts in order to comply with the

subnational transfer requirements of the latest EITI standard.

Technical Note:

The “brief description” section appears to have been cutoff mid-sentence at the 140 character

limit.