The Philippines advanced for the third straight time in a biennial ranking of countries where the public has the most access to government budget information, results of the study released recently, reported ABS CBN news online portal.
The Philippines ranked 19th out of 115 countries in the Open Budget Survey of the International Budget Partnership, an advocacy group that works with civil society.
The Philippines got a score of 67 out of 100, the highest in Southeast Asia and above the global average of 42, according to the survey results that were released in the Philippines by De La Salle University.
Extracting the study report, herewith you may find the rankings of other countries in the region, together with their scores that are measured according to these details:
# The results for each country in the Open Budget Scores 2017 are based on a questionnaire, comprising 145 scored questions, that is completed by researchers typically based in the surveyed country
# It assesses the three components of a budget accountability system: public availability of budget information; opportunities for the public to participate in the budget process; and the role and effectiveness of formal oversight institutions, including the legislature and the national audit office (referred to here as the “supreme audit institution”)
# Researchers for the OBS 2017 collected data on their country between September 2016 and the end of December 2016. Thus the OBS 2017 assesses only those events, activities, or developments that should have occurred up to 31 December 2016
# The Open Budget Index (OBI) assigns each country a score from 0 to 100 based on the simple average of the numerical value of each of the responses to the 109 questions in the questionnaire that assess the public availability of budget information
# A country’s OBI score measures the extent to which it makes the eight key budget documents available to the public on the relevant government website in a timely manner and the comprehensiveness of publicly available budget information
*Note: Brunei, Laos, and Singapore aren't indexed in the report
Source : abs-cbn.com, International Budget Partnership official report
