Good Governance summit opens, to take steps to ‘move forward’

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – In an effort to “solidify the steps needed to move forward”, the government formally opened a three-day summit that seeks to do just that.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad opened the three-day Good Governance Summit at the Philippine International Convention Center Wednesday.

In his speech, Abad said the summit was organized “not to brag about our achievements in the last three years but to solidify the steps we need to take moving forward.”

Nonetheless, Abad cited the country’s exceptional feats in the past years.

“Last year, we achieved exceptional feats, most notably our robust economic growth that outshines our neighbors and our being upgraded into a higher level of competitiveness despite the uncertain global situation. All of these are fundamentally due to the improved state of governance,” he said.

Abad said the controversies and calamities that beset the country in the past months further fueled the public’s demand for a transparent and responsive government.

“Today, we are presenting our good governance initiatives—our game plan for transforming governance systems, opening public institutions to the people and giving voice to the voiceless,” the Secretary explained.

He outlined the various activities set for the next days, including the launch of the Cashless Purchase Card System and Open Data Philippines, which will be the “single and comprehensive portal for government data, with more than 400 data sets spanning all departments and agencies made accessible to the public through https://www.data.gov.ph.”

“These, and many more, are all geared towards empowering our citizens to play a more active in the processes of statecraft,” Abad said.

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