Participatory governance and open government

Ike Señeres

I REMEMBER attending a forum before, wherein a government official was talking about open data, at a time when there was no Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill yet. Of course, we still do not have the FOI Bill up to now, but at least, we already have the Executive Order (EO) that somehow fills in the void in the meantime. I mentioned this as an opening statement, in order to stress the point that there is a direct correlation between open data and FOI, and there is no way of going around that. In a similar manner, there is a direct correlation between participatory governance and FOI, and there is also no way around it. In much the same way that there could be no FOI if there is no open data, there could also be no participatory governance if there is no FOI.

Every now and then, new buzzwords would come out of popular usage, but sometimes a new buzzword does not differ much in meaning when compared to an old one. For example, we have long heard about good governance, even if we have not experience much of it. Now comes participatory governance and we hope to experience much of it, even if seemingly sounds like good governance also. Not that I would want to dwell too much on semantics, but in theory, good governance has to be participatory, because it is a two way process that involves the participation of both the private sector and the public sector. If there is no two way process it is not good, and good governance could not come out of it.

As it is supposed to be in the first place, democracy is a social contract, and therefore it should really be participatory, both in theory and in practice. If the citizens would not participate in a democracy, then it would become a dictatorship by default, because the few people who participate in the process could dominate everything, even if they are only the minority. Sometimes we hear the term participatory democracy being used, but that is actually an oxymoron because in the first place, democracy is supposed to be participatory. That is like using the term dictatorial communism which is also an oxymoron, because communism is supposed to be dictatorial in the first place.

According to the website www.opensource.com, “open government is one with high levels of transparency and mechanisms for public scrutiny and oversight in place, with an emphasis on government accountability”. It also said that “transparency is the traditional hallmark of an open government, meaning that the public should have access to government-held information and be informed of government proceedings”. It also said that in recent years, “the definition of open government has expanded to expectations or increased citizen participation and collaboration in government proceedings through the use of modern, open technologies”.

The more I dwell into this topic, the more I am convinced that indeed, participatory governance would be impossible to do without an open government. Having one without the other would actually be a contradiction in itself, because one would cancel the other out if both are not used together. I still do not know how this two would work together, but I have a sense that these two are like body and soul, open government being the body and participatory governance being the soul. Having said that, I could now also say that the FOI EO could be considered as a tool that would strengthen both body and soul, but surely it would even become a more powerful tool if it becomes an FOI law.

Summarizing what is said in that website, an open government needs to have (1) high levels of transparency, (2) mechanisms for public scrutiny and (3), mechanisms for oversight. Not only that, the citizens (1) should have access to government-held information, (2) should be informed of government proceedings and (3) should be allowed to participate and collaborate in government proceedings. I also do not know what the term “proceedings” would mean, but loosely interpreted, that could mean all hearings and meetings that could possibly be opened to the public, in all branches of the government, perhaps with the exception of executive sessions.

It is encouraging to hear that the government is planning to institutionalize participatory governance already, but in order to make that work seamlessly with an open government, there is a need to already release the so-called exceptions, as stated in the FOI EO. That way, we would know what types of information are allowed to be released to the public, and what would not be allowed for reasons of secrecy, confidentiality and national security. For a start, the government agencies should start declassifying what are considered now to be confidential, secret and top secret. For sure, there has to be a good balance between the right of the people to know, and the duty of the government to protect the security of the state.

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