US President Barack Obama (L) shakes hands with Philippines President Benigno Aquino III (R) following the Open Government Partnership Event on September 20, 2011 at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York. AFP PHOTO/Mandel NGAN
NEW YORK CITY–President Benigno Aquino III on Tuesday said he won the presidency last year because Filipinos wanted an open government and stressed his administration was serious about achieving this fully.
Aquino said his government was set to implement in January next year an action plan, which is currently a work in progress.
With US President Barack Obama sitting beside him, the President delivered a speech at the launch of the new multilateral initiative called Open Government Partnership (OGP) at the Waldorf Astoria hotel here.
Aquino attributed the Filipinos’ toppling of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 to their “collective yearning for what we are discussing today: open and accountable governance.”
It was this same desire that he said prompted Filipinos to vote for him and land him the presidency.
“Last year, it was the idea of an open government as well that, again in another unprecedented act, rallied the Filipino people in droves, not in the streets but through the ballot, to vote for me, then a member of the opposition, so that the Filipino people, and not merely participants in the long-entrenched system of patronage and corruption, could finally emerge victorious,” he said.
“This is what democracy is all about: having a government disciplined enough to imbibe in itself the principles of transparency, accountability, and citizen involvement— the necessary preconditions to poverty alleviation and inclusive and sustainable economic growth,” he said.
Aquino said his country’s participation in the OGP was consistent with his administration’s commitment to honest and effective governance as he thanked the OGP for the Phiippine’s membership because this “acknowledges and further strengthens our commitment to promoting transparency, fostering accountability, and combating corruption.”
Aquino said that just as his administration would continue to wage a campaign “against those who abused power in the past, we are also strengthening institutions through Open Government.”
“In fact, we have created a road map called the 2012 Philippine Government Action Plan to ensure that our government institutions are at par with international transparency standards,” he said, adding
the Action Plan was developed through consultation with networks of Civil Society Organizations as well as business groups engaged in the integrity advocacy and will be implemented in January 2012.
“All these efforts are indicators of how serious we are in transforming our system from one that operates through secrecy, impunity, and collusion, into a government that embodies transparency, accountability, and citizen engagement—a government that truly exists for its people,” he said.
The Philippines and the US are among the eight countries making up the steering committee of the OGP which encourages governments to be open and transparent, engage its people and fight corruption, among others.