Extending beyond compliance and consultation, Naga City’s experience shows how citizens can actively shape public spending priorities, directly influence government spending, institutionalize fiscal transparency, and hold public institutions accountable.

NAGA CITY, Philippines — How does a local government unit and its citizenry benefit from a genuine People’s Budget? Is it enough for the government to publish its budget, explain where public money goes, and invite citizens to express their concerns? Or should people have a more meaningful role in actively deciding and directly lobbying which needs deserve priority, in discerning which programs should receive sufficient funding, and in determining how public resources should tangibly translate into better lives for ordinary families?

These questions served as the key foundations for Dagyaw 2026, an Open Government Town Hall organized around the theme of building an inclusive, responsive, and accountable People’s Budget. The summit was held at the Robinsons Naga on October 26, 2026.

Anchored in the campaign #BudgetNatin, the gathering brought together local government representatives, civil society organizations, academic institutions, participatory governance advocates, and the general public to examine how citizens and government can work together in shaping the city’s development priorities.

The word Dagyaw, a Hiligaynon term associated with collective community effort and commonly compared with the Filipino tradition of bayanihan, expressed the spirit of the initiative. It carried the message that governance is not be the exclusive responsibility of public officials. Rather, it is a shared undertaking in which citizens contribute their knowledge, articulate their needs, help formulate solutions, and participate in ensuring that public resources serve the common good.

At the heart of the discussions was a central proposition: a People’s Budget is not simply a document to be disclosed to the public. It is a process through which people help shape the priorities, programs, and projects that their government funds.

Public money is the people’s money

Good governance advocates and public officials underscored the importance of moving beyond traditional approaches to budgeting.

Francis Nohmer M. Esguerra, member of the board of directors of Gayon Cares, a civil society and LGBTQIA+ community organization based in Albay, emphasized the need to strengthen fiscal policy through meaningful participation at the local level. Bringing government closer to the people must go hand in hand with bringing people closer to governance. Citizens should not be treated merely as beneficiaries of public programs; they should also be recognized as co-creators of policies and decisions that affect their lives.

The principle is particularly important in ensuring that development does not leave vulnerable communities behind. When citizens participate in determining priorities, they can help surface concerns that may otherwise remain overlooked in conventional planning and budgeting processes.

Dr. Ramesis M. Lorino, Director of the Bicol University Jesse M. Robredo Institute of Governance and Development, situated this approach within the continuing pursuit of good governance associated with the legacy of former Naga City mayor and former Department of the Interior and Local Government secretary Jesse M. Robredo. The ideals of being mahusay, matapat, matino, at may puso—competent, honest, upright, and compassionate—provide a framework for governance that listens to the public rather than imposing decisions upon it.

For Lorino, transparency and civil partnership are not isolated administrative practices. They are integral to sustaining a government that responds to the people it serves.

Francis C. Bautista, Regional Director of the Department of Budget and Management Regional Office V, likewise stressed that budgeting should not be viewed merely as a technical exercise. It is an expression of democratic culture, reflecting whose needs are recognized, whose concerns are heard, and whose interests shape the allocation of public resources.

From this perspective, an effective budget must bring the needs of vulnerable sectors to the forefront. Civil society organizations, in turn, have a responsibility to engage government through evidence-based advocacy and to help monitor whether public funds are spent appropriately.

Atty. Arnaldo E. Escober Jr., Regional director of the Department of the Interior and Local Government Region V, reinforced the importance of open dialogue between local government and civil society. Citizen recommendations must inform government decisions, while opportunities for participation must extend beyond consultation toward a meaningful role in determining how public money is used.

Together, these messages established the foundation of the town hall: participation becomes meaningful when citizens can influence decisions instead of simply being recipients of public funding that do not directly reflect their specific civil and sectoral advocacies.

Open Government as the Foundation for the People’s Budget

Aurora “Araw” Chavez-De Guzman, Co-Chairperson of the Philippine Open Government Partnership Steering Committee, placed the discussions within the broader framework of the concept of Open Government.

A government budget, she emphasized, is more than a document or a collection of figures. It is a platform for public service. Because the money involved belongs to the public and is intended to serve the public interest, citizens must have access to the information and decision-making processes that determine how it is used.

Open Government seeks to make public institutions more accessible by allowing citizens to understand, examine, and participate in decisions and policies that affect them. Civil society is a crucial pillar of this approach, helping bridge the relationship between government institutions and the communities they serve.

The Philippines is a founding member of the global Open Government Partnership, an initiative that promotes collaboration between governments and civil society. Its institutional framework in the country includes Executive Order No. 31, series of 2023, which institutionalized the Philippine Open Government Partnership, as well as the Sixth Philippine OGP National Action Plan and the Department of the Interior and Local Government’s Memorandum Circular No. 2025-065 on open government in local government units.

These initiatives provide a broader policy context for bringing open government principles closer to communities.

Naga City’s experience illustrates how such principles can be translated into local practice through three interconnected mechanisms: the People’s Budget, the Naga City People’s Council, and the People’s Budget Portal.

Together, these mechanisms seek to connect public participation with the actual processes of planning, allocating, disclosing, and monitoring public resources.

The institutional foundations of citizen participation

Naga City’s People’s Budget did not emerge overnight. Its development reflects a longer history of efforts to establish a more organized and influential role for civil society in local governance.

Wilfredo Prilles Jr., head of the City Planning and Development Office, and a champion of citizen participation, traced this evolution to the initial work of cause-oriented groups that were already engaged in governance before Civil Society Organizations (CSO) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) formalized and institutionalized the practice of active citizen participation into the aggrupation that would become the Naga City People’s Council (NCPC).

Among the important figures in this history was Atty. James Jacob, whose advocacy helped advance Civil Society participation in the Sangguniang Panlungsod. His efforts contributed to the unify and harmonize the initiatives of cause-oriented groups and the local government into the Empowerment Ordinance, which established a more formal framework for citizen involvement in local legislation.

Ordinance No. 1995-092 provided for the legal foundation for what would become the city’s only recognized people’s council: the Naga City People’s Council. This arrangement gave organized citizens a formal avenue through which to engage with the city’s legislative processes.

The framework was subsequently strengthened by Ordinance No. 2015-038, which provided for a 1.25-percent share of the Annual Local Development Fund through direct allocation in the annual city budget. This automatic allocation created an ecosystem of autonomy since the funding and operations of the NCPC would no longer be subjected to a yearly lobbying before the Sanggunian Panlungsod for a budget.

A further milestone came with Ordinance No. 2017-072, or the People’s Budget Ordinance. The ordinance institutionalized participatory budgeting, public consultations, and full-cycle transparency in the preparation and approval of budgets and appropriation ordinances for the city and its barangays. It mandated the active engagement of the Naga City People’s Council in shaping the Annual Investment Program and city budget.

Prilles described the ordinance as sui generis—distinctive in its character. Its Section 8 is particularly significant because it establishes a two-level system for presenting and consulting on proposed budgets through assemblies organized by the Naga City People’s Council.

The provision made citizen participation an indispensable part of the budget process itself. Under the system described by Prilles, certification from the Naga City People’s Council that all city departments, offices, and program units have complied with Section 8 serves as a mechanism for verifying participation.

This is an important distinction. Rather than leaving public consultation entirely to the discretion of individual offices, the process establishes a formal expectation that government units engage with the organized citizenry when presenting their proposed budgets.

The experience demonstrates how citizen empowerment can move from a general principle to an institutional arrangement supported by ordinances, procedures, and defined responsibilities.

How the People’s Budget takes shape

The work of the Naga City People’s Council shows how public participation can be organized into a practical sequence of activities.

According to Elmer Sto. Domingo, Chairperson of the Naga City People’s Council, the process begins with the formulation of sectoral agendas. As of now, there are 17 sectors under the Naga City People’s Council. These sectors conduct their respective agenda workshops to identify their needs, concerns, and target priorities.

These individual agendas are then consolidated at the level of the Naga City People’s Council in the form of the People’s Agenda, allowing the concerns of various groups to be brought together into a broader set of recommendations for the City.

The next stage involves dialogue with the local government through clustered workshops. These discussions provide an opportunity for citizens and government representatives to examine priorities, clarify needs, negotiate points of convergence, and ensure that community-informed data shape the desired outcomes.

The process then proceeds to the formulation of the Annual Investment Program (AIP), where sectoral priorities are identified for inclusion in the City’s investment planning. From there, the proposals move to the City Development Council meeting and, subsequently, to approval by the Sangguniang Panlungsod.

This sequence connects community-level discussions with the formal institutions responsible for planning and authorizing public expenditures.

Importantly, citizen participation does not begin only when the budget is being prepared. Sto. Domingo explained that the various sectors, through the Naga City People’s Council, had already contributed to shaping and refining the current administration’s Finish Lines 2028 during the formulation of its Executive and Legislative Agenda.

This means that participation can influence not only the selection of individual projects but also the broader development goals against which government performance is assessed.

The process reflects a shared division of responsibilities. The local government retains the authority to establish its direction and authorize spending, while the Naga City People’s Council articulates sectoral priorities and helps inform decisions about which programs and projects should receive attention.

This partnership does not eliminate the government’s responsibility for making decisions. Instead, it seeks to make those decisions more responsive to the people whose lives they affect.

The shift from Consultation to Co-Creation

The partnership between the Local Government Unit of Naga City and the Naga City People’s Council illustrates how participatory governance can positively influence the substance and impact of public investment.

A presentation by the WeSolve Foundation highlighted the partnership model through which government and civil society work together in setting priorities. While the local government determines the direction of spending and authorizes expenditures, the Naga City People’s Council helps define the sectoral agenda that informs those choices.

The collaboration has contributed largely to initiatives and outcomes including the 2028 Finish Lines indicators, the M.T. Villanueva Rehabilitation project, and the series of Carless Weekends.

This paradigm shift in budgeting revealed an increase in citizen-focused programs, projects, and activities from 21 percent to 80 percent, alongside an increase from 13 percent to 40 percent in the inclusion of citizen recommendations in the investment process.

These figures point to the potential impact of institutionalized citizen engagement. Participation can move beyond the expression of concerns toward a more tangible influence on the composition of public investment.

Nevertheless, the significance of these figures lies not only in the numbers themselves but also in the process behind them. Citizens can help identify priorities that government planning might otherwise fail to capture, while government institutions can provide the technical expertise and administrative mechanisms needed to translate those priorities into programs and projects.

This is the essence of co-creation: public institutions and citizens contribute different forms of knowledge and responsibility toward a common development agenda.

The partnership also extends to the development of the People’s Budget Portal, which was co-designed with the Naga City People’s Council. The portal represents an effort to make budget information more accessible and useful to citizens, government offices, and other stakeholders.

Making the budget understandable and accessible

For many citizens, government budgeting can be difficult to understand. Technical terminology, complex tables, and numerous programs and expenditure items can make it challenging to determine how public money relates to everyday needs.

The People’s Budget Portal seeks to help bridge this gap by showing how development goals are translated into programs and projects.

Its intended functions serve several audiences. Citizens can use it to examine and monitor the budget; government offices can use it to support consolidation; and the public can provide feedback through a platform designed for open use.

By making budget information more accessible, the portal can help citizens connect policy commitments with actual spending priorities. It can also provide a clearer basis for examining whether proposed programs correspond to the goals they are supposed to advance.

Yet access to information is only part of the challenge.

During the town hall’s panel discussion, participants raised the question of how the online portal could help ordinary citizens understand budget details that are often complicated. The discussion emphasized the importance of clear indicators for determining whether a budget is relevant to community needs.

The portal can simplify the presentation of these indicators, but the process becomes more meaningful when citizens are involved from the beginning in helping formulate them.

In other words, people should not merely be given information about indicators and targets developed elsewhere. Their participation in defining what matters—and how progress should be measured—can make the resulting information more relevant to their lived experiences.

The discussion also acknowledged a practical limitation: the need to address accessibility for citizens who cannot readily use an online platform. The City acknowledged the access gap and have pledged to address the concern.

This remains an important consideration in any effort to democratize budget information. A digital platform can widen access for many people, but meaningful inclusion also requires attention to those who face barriers to using it. The online portal is also open source, meaning that the original design, blueprints, or underlying source code of the application is publicly available for anyone to view, use, modify, and share. The hope is that the general public has ana active hand in improving how the system works, enhance the experience by sharing best practices, and carry the message of co-creation as the capstone of a functioning democracy.

Three Pillars of Participatory Governance

Ayla Marie Lunar, officer-in-charge of the Ateneo de Naga University Center for Local Governance, connected the People’s Budget to three pillars of good governance: Participation, Transparency, and Accountability.

Her discussion began with a fundamental question: Do local government policies genuinely help ordinary families in their everyday lives? The answer depends not simply on whether government programs exist, but on whether public institutions can be trusted to respond to community needs and deliver meaningful improvements.

Participation, in this framework, has two distinct forms.

The first is nominal participation, in which citizens are present mainly as an audience. They may attend meetings or consultations, but their involvement does not necessarily influence decisions.

The second is transformative participation, in which citizens and government engage in deliberate co-governance. People become involved in public policy formulation, from budgeting to the drafting of ordinances.

The difference is fundamental. Attendance alone does not guarantee effectiveness. Participation becomes transformative when citizens have meaningful opportunities to shape the policies and priorities that govern their communities.

Transparency, meanwhile, requires public information to be treated as public property—freely, directly, and proactively accessible. Citizens should not have to rely solely on informal access or political and personal connections to understand government decisions.

Accountability completes the framework. It requires clear data, independent oversight, and firm regulatory mechanisms that allow public institutions to explain and justify their decisions.

In Naga City, these principles are reflected in mechanisms such as the MyNaga App, which supports the city’s pursuit of transparency; the Naga City Internal Audit Services, which contributes to accountability; and the Naga City People’s Council, which provides an institutional avenue for citizen participation.

Together, these mechanisms show that good governance cannot depend on transparency alone. Information must be accessible, citizens must be able to participate meaningfully, and government actions must be subject to scrutiny.

Lunar’s call to action extended across the different groups that make local governance possible. Public officials must recognize leadership as public service and public trust. Civil society and sectoral leaders must remain vigilant, particularly in protecting vulnerable sectors. Academic institutions must contribute research, training, and sound frameworks for understanding local development.

Residents, too, have a responsibility. They can review budgets, monitor infrastructure projects, participate in public discussions, elect responsible public servants, and speak out against inequities and injustices.

The underlying principle is that good governance involves both co-creation and co-ownership. Government and citizens must work together not only to formulate public priorities but also to sustain responsibility for the results.

When can a budget make a difference?

The town hall’s panel discussion returned to a question that gives the entire initiative its practical significance: Why should ordinary citizens know where public money goes?

The answer offered during the discussion was direct: a budget becomes meaningless if people cannot feel its effects in their lives.

The point does not diminish the importance of financial planning or technical compliance. Rather, it places these activities within their ultimate purpose. Public spending must translate into benefits that citizens can recognize—in services that respond to their needs, projects that address community problems, and programs that improve their welfare.

This also explains why the relationship between citizens and government must begin before the final budget is approved. If people are involved only after priorities have already been established, their ability to influence outcomes may be limited.

By participating in agenda-setting, consultations, investment planning, and monitoring, citizens have more opportunities to help define what meaningful results should look like.

The panel also discussed how citizens could determine whether their recommendations had been heard. The Naga City People’s Council carries the burden of and the opportunity presented by the process because it provides an organized platform for citizen engagement and occupies an influential position from which to hold the local government accountable.

This highlights an important dimension of participatory governance. They need a credible mechanism through which those recommendations can enter public decision-making and be scrutinized as part of the government’s response to community priorities.

Without such mechanisms, consultation risks becoming an exercise in collecting opinions without establishing how those opinions affect decisions.

The role of citizens in safeguarding public resources

The People’s Budget model places responsibility on both sides of the government-citizen relationship.

Government institutions must disclose information, provide meaningful opportunities for participation, and demonstrate accountability in the use of public funds. Citizens, for their part, must be prepared to engage constructively, examine evidence, articulate priorities, and monitor the implementation of public commitments.

Civil Society Organizations are particularly important in this arrangement. They can help organize the concerns of different sectors, translate community experiences into policy recommendations, and engage government using evidence rather than advocacy alone.

Academic institutions can strengthen this work by contributing research, training, and analytical frameworks that help communities and public officials assess needs and evaluate outcomes.

The result is a model in which public participation is not confined to election periods or occasional public consultations. Instead, engagement becomes part of the continuing relationship between government and the people it serves. The ecosystem is community-driven. Among the champions present in the People’s Budget summit represent the type of aggrupations and institutions required to keep the system up and running: the Naga City People’s Council, Naga City I-Engage, the Naga City People’s Budget Portal, the Naga City Project Monitoring Committee, the Ateneo de Naga University Center for Local Governance, and the Department of the Interior and Local Government Region V.

Together, these institutions and mechanisms represented different entry points through which citizens can access information, engage with public institutions, participate in planning, and monitor government performance.

Their effectiveness, however, ultimately depends on whether these opportunities are accessible, sustained, and connected to actual decisions and outcomes.

Toward a genuine People’s Budget

Dagyaw Naga 2026 brought into focus a central lesson from Naga City’s experience: participatory governance requires more than an invitation for citizens to speak. It requires institutions and processes that allow their contributions to inform public priorities and influence how public resources are used.

The city’s experience, as presented during the town hall, demonstrates the importance of building these arrangements over time. The local government establishes formal avenues for participation through ordinances, executive orders, citizens’ charter, streamlined bureaucratic channels, and relevant public policies. The Naga City People’s Council organizes sectoral priorities and brings them into the planning process. Collaboration between civil society and the local government shapes development indicators and investment priorities. The People’s Budget Portal makes budget information more accessible and useful for public scrutiny.

These mechanisms do not remove the challenges of governance. Citizens still need understandable information, inclusive avenues for participation, credible ways to monitor spending, and confidence that their recommendations will receive serious consideration. The accessibility limitations raised during the discussion also underscore the need to ensure that digital tools do not leave some residents behind. Participatory governance is a constantly evolving pathway. But a work in progress is still progress.

In her message, Mayor Leni Robredo underscored that the active role of the citizenry is non-negotiable in a budget process geared towards authentic progress. It is the government’s role and function to listen. It cannot unilaterally decide on how to spend the money that belongs to the people. She admitted that the shift in the mindset in both the government and the public is a tall task. But if we are to be truly responsible in managing the meager resources at our disposal for an optimal measure of public benefit, everyone must have agency and opportunity in democratizing the process.

A genuine People’s Budget must therefore be judged not simply by the number of consultations conducted, the volume of information published, or the existence of a public portal. Its deeper measure is whether people can meaningfully influence decisions, whether government can account for the use of public funds, and whether public spending produces improvements that communities can actually experience.

Ultimately, the promise of the People’s Budget is democratic in both principle and practice. It recognizes that public money carries a public responsibility—and that the people who contribute to and depend on public resources deserve a meaningful role in determining how those resources serve the common good.

The spirit of Dagyaw offers an apt expression of this commitment. Just as community members come together to accomplish what no individual can achieve alone, participatory budgeting calls on government and citizens to share the work of building a more responsive, inclusive, and accountable city.

A genuine People’s Budget, in the end, is not merely a budget made public. It is a budget for and by the people, accountable to the public, and measured by the difference it makes in the lives of everyone.

The header features the participants of the Dagyaw 2026 summit held at the Robinsons Naga on October 26, 2026. (all photos courtesy of DILG Rehiyon Singko)

About the author:

DENNIS B. GONZAGA: Writer, critic, and academician. Former Humanities faculty at Ateneo de Naga University. Curator of The 416 Art Space in Naga City. Advocate for local culture. AB Political Science graduate, Ateneo de Naga University; MA Asian Studies graduate , University of the Philippines. Public Information Officer, Naga City People’s Council.