The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) with support from the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) and non-government partners have launched a series of Open Government Partnership (OGP) and Participatory Governance Regional Townhall Meetings dubbed as “Dagyaw 2019”. Dagyaw is a Hiligaynon term for “Bayanihan,” which exemplifies the concept of “togetherness” that fittingly describes the very nature and value proposition of the OGP which is about bringing different stakeholders together.
Resource Speakers from DOH, DA, and DPWH as they respond to the Dagyawan Open Forum during the 1st leg of Dagyaw for Region 3.
Dagyaw is one of the main government campaigns that serves as a platform for productive, valuable, sincere and visible engagement between senior officials of government and the citizens. This was conducted in 16 regions from June to August 2019. The government held its first leg of Dagyaw last July 2, 2019 in Pampanga (Region III) and completed it last September 24, 2019 in Mindoro (Region IV-B).
As a platform, Dagyaw works to promote and disseminate information on the open government and participatory governance initiatives of the Duterte Administration. In each townhall meeting, Dagyaw brought together at least 800 stakeholders and convened various frontline service delivery agencies such as Pag-Ibig, SSS, Philhealth, LTO among others, in a one-stop shop that offers assistance to the people. Attendees were representatives from civil society organizations, academe, business groups, public sector unions, peoples organizations, local media, and regular citizens. In total, about 11, 175 participants attended Dagyaw in Baguio City, Pangasinan, Cagayan, Pampanga, Pasay City, Batangas, Oriental Mindoro, Albay, Iloilo, Cebu, Tacloban, Zamboanga, Cagayan de Oro, Davao, General Santos and in Agusan Del Norte.
DOT Assistant Secretary Roberto Alabado presenting the tourism sector accomplishments in Cebu.
It specifically aimed to: (1) communicate the good governance reforms of the Duterte administration (e.g. TRAIN 2, Build Build Build, Budget Reforms, Ambisyon 2040, etc.); (2) provide a platform for regular citizens to clarify “Issues of the Day” and raise local concerns through direct interfacing between senior government officials; (3) provide a venue for citizens to access a one-stop shop of frontline government services and national programs down to the region; and (4) gather stakeholder inputs for the co-creation of the Philippine Open Government Partnership (PH-OGP) National Action Plan 2019-2021.
Dagyaw is unique and different from other participatory initiatives because of its objective - to make each regional dialogue focus on area-specific issues and problems. The topics of the townhall sessions were identified by the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) based on data from their Daily Regional Issues Digest (DRID), which include local issues and concerns that are regularly gathered by the PIA Government Information Center and coordinators on the ground.
Along with the Dagyaw, there were also regional consultations done to co-create the 5th National Action Plan (NAP) of the PH-OGP. The PH-OGP NAP 2019-2021 was launched last December 19, 2019 in Hotel Jen, Pasay and can be viewed online through the PH-OGP Website.
