OnePercentLegacy: Protecting Investments on Public Projects

The OnePercentLegacy is a proposed undertaking for the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel, www.namfrel.com.ph) to support its work in monitoring the procurement processes by various government agencies.  It is akin to a social audit or social accountability, according to Philippine Budget Management department secretary, Florencio Abad.

The value proposition of the OnePercentLegacy is citizens can effectively help track and report progress of public projects at less than one percent of the project cost.  This will be done with the collaboration of the funding or contracting agencies and with trained volunteers. The data capture system will use an inclusive (built-for-participation) technology-enabled data portal, and the information collected will be integrated with that of the contracting agency’s own monitoring and evaluation system.

Trained volunteers of Namfrel will monitor and report project progress using tools like the mobile phones and cameras. They will also use specific checklists and on-line tools customized to the project being monitored. Anyone close to the project sites, like in places where a school building or a bridge is being built, could send spot reports using SMS, videos, photographs, or in oral or spoken form.  These pieces of information will serve as third-party inputs to the overall project monitoring process.

The one percent figure taken from the cost of a public project is both symbolic and actual.  The nominal cost is positioned to be attractive and acceptable to the contracting and funding agencies, like the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank.  It is symbolic because over time, as more and more individuals participate in the process, each contribution becomes infinitesimally small as the total contribution by citizens becomes infinitely large.  The equivalent of one-percent-of-project-cost, as the cost of this social audit, will be actual and will set the benchmark for efficiency. It may not be breached regardless of the kind of project.

Information gathered from the OnePercentLegacy project will hopefully provide bilateral and multi-lateral public project fund (loan) providers a rationale to allocate funds for social audit by citizens.  This small investment to engage citizens will be used to help protect the larger investments they made the fund providers made on the public projects.

A pilot-test of the key deliverables and value-added will be carried out in the next few months.  The first applications will be in Namfrel's current monitoring programs.  Once the concept is proven feasible and sufficient operational knowledge has been accumulated, the OnePercentLegacy would be propagated in  other parts of the world.  This would be done by the funding agencies, by Namfrel or by third-party proponents.

Background on Namfrel

Namfrel is a non-partisan volunteer domestic election observation group founded in 1983 in the Philippines.  It was first of it's kind in the world.  It has carried out transparency and accountability-promotion projects in the past.  In 1987 in observed the bidding and project execution of small infrastructure projects by the department of Public Works and Highways in a program to create one million jobs nationwide.  In 2003, the department of Education engaged Namfrel to monitor the delivery of textbooks to public high schools and elementary schools.

Since then Namfrel continues be observe the procurement processes of the department of Education and the department of Health.  The department of Public Works and Highways and the department of Interior and Local Government have recently invited Namfrel to participate in the procurement processes and track the implementation of their projects.

Seeking your inputs

I would like to hear your thoughts on how the OnePercentLegacy could be improved and delivered well.  Do write in the comment section or send an email to OnePercentLegacy@gmail.com.  Better yet send in a video of you giving your comments.  Thank you very much.

(The author is a volunteer of Namfrel since 1986.  He served as executive director from 1997 to 2003.  He has been a member of the national council from 2009 up to the present.  He has observed elections in many countries since 1994 and has worked with the National Democratic Institute (ndi.org) in Afghanistan, Timor Leste and Bangladesh.  This project is dedicated to the volunteers of Namfrel who have offer time, talent and treasure to protect the integrity of Philippine elections.  For the nine Namfrel volunteers who offered the ultimate sacrifice to country, this project of vigilance and citizen oversight is offered so that their deaths would not been in vain.) (Text revised on 2011 Feb 16)

Servus servorum and a Discovery at Every Turn (Part 1 of 3)

By Telibert Laoc
at the
36th Commencement Exercise of the
University of the Philippines College Cebu High School
16 April 2010, Cebu City


Introduction

We are all here today for a joyous occasion. We celebrate this occasion with you, the graduates and your parents. We also celebrate this day with our mentors and the support teams in this high school who helped make your four-year experience a meaningful one.

Congratulations to you all!

Thirty-two years ago I was in the same place as all of you are -- right there. Just like your parents who are seated beside you, my parents where also by my side. Like any other parent, they were uncertain of my future but they hoped for the best for me and that things would work out well. Your parents, I am sure, are so happy for you for having gone through this significant rite of passage of graduating from high school at the University of the Philippines.

Since my high school days, I have been through lots of experiences and have immersed in many places and situations here and abroad. I have also made associations with many individuals, and have made and acted on numerous decisions. In many of these instances I know that I have been guided and shaped by the wonderful years of learning spent here in this campus.

Threat to our future

When we graduated from high school, the country was under a dictator. The political condition was grim, the insurgency took such a strong foothold and the threat of the going into a civil war was imminent. Our future did not look good. What our parents had dreamed for us to become could have easily been derailed or stifled by the political uncertainties. In fact going to college was an uncertainty to some of the youth at that time.

In 1986 (a few years before most of you graduates were born) many of our countrymen and women restored the people’s faith in the elections and ensured that the transition to power was peaceful. The culmination of a long struggle against tyranny of a powerful and oppressive few, and a corrupt and decadent system of private and public governance, took the form of the EDSA People Power Revolution – a cathartic moment, a moment of freedom and of great jubilation.

Fast-forward 2010. What have we before us? A situation unlike that of decades ago, and we thought that we had gotten out of that rut already. Despite the honest work and sincere of efforts by many of our people (present company included) to help improve our country, our nation has not significantly alleviated the plight of many of our brothers and sisters living in the oppression of poverty. Many of them have been denied their potentials and of opportunities to become who they want to be. Many of them are so underprivileged and struggling day-to-day that even to dream of a better life escapes them. Corruption remains unabated and unchecked. Politics is as uncertain as it was; and there seems to be no promise of relief even after the elections this May. However, the coming elections are important and it has to be perceived as reflecting the true will of the voters.

My Namfrel experience

I have been tasked today to share with you and with your parents a most challenging and interesting task and duty of protecting the electoral process. On May 10, 50 million are expected to vote. We need to help ensure that what comes out of the ballot is their will.

In 1983 during the Batasang Pambansa (National Legislature) elections the Filipinos introduced to the world a noble concept of engaging volunteers to help ensure that voters are free to cast their votes in secret, monitor the conduct of the voting, and check the accuracy of the counting of the votes. This was the birth of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (or Namfrel). Their main role is to protect the electoral process without favoring a candidate or political party. In that election, it saw several thousands of volunteers offer time, talent and treasure to protect a key institution of democracy. Close to one million concerned and peace-loving Filipinos supported that effort in 1986 at the Snap Presidential Election. Volunteers throughout the country monitored the outcome of the elections and helped expose the manipulation of the count. The experiences of those who joined the movement have been significant and volunteering, for many of them, have never been that good.

Since then the organization has been active in all the elections in the country. That model of citizen involvement was so effective and inspiring that apart from a Nobel Peace Prize nomination (in 1986), Namfrel members were invited to share their experiences and help set up similar efforts in over 30 countries. I have personally helped and set up such groups in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Afghanistan and Timor-Leste.

Volunteers needed

At the home front today, citizen volunteers are needed more than ever. So much hope is strung around the elections on May 10 that is it extremely important for us citizens to be involved in protecting it, and ensuring that it will be credible and the results will be accepted by all.

The challenge I pose to the parents here today is to volunteer. If you are supporting a candidate or a political party, please volunteer and campaign wholeheartedly for your candidate. Help voters understand the future that your candidate or party has to offer the country when they get elected.

But for those who opt be non-partisan and prefer to safeguard the electoral process, do so by volunteering with Namfrel or with your own great local organization, the C-CIMPEL (Cebu-Citizens' Involvement and Maturation in People's Empowerment and Liberation). Volunteer along with the members of your family and inspire your friends to also do so.

The challenge to the graduates is to soldier your parents on to sign-up and volunteer. Together, make volunteering for a worthy cause and committing to democracy and to country, a wonderful shared experience.

The challenge to our mentors and the other members of this school is to also sign-up along with your family.

While you inspire others, I am sure that you, too, will also be moved by the dedication and commitment of the other volunteers you will meet along the way. (C-CIMPEL’s contact numbers are 032 412 1322 / 255 2643 or 255 2805. Give them a call when you have the chance)

Witness to moving volunteerism

The International Visitors' “Volunteerism in the U.S.” was the program that I had the privilege to participate in 2001. It almost did not push through because it started just three days after 9/11. Little did I know that from that unfortunate event of 9/11 also flowed the most moving and inspiring acts of individual and collective volunteerism among Americans. It was indeed one of the best times to see volunteerism in action.

The lessons from the program and the given context within which it took place were many and unforgettable. That 90 percent of all donations in the U.S. are from individuals (the rest from corporations), and that the value of contributions through the non-profit sector is indeed a significant amount relative to the country's GDP showed proofs of not just generosity, but also dynamism and confidence in that sector. There are organizations, whose representatives I've met that pride of their ability to manage and direct to effective efforts acts of volunteerism, like donations of personal time, funds and those in-kind. I concluded, that these are among the trademarks of a strong nation; where people show concern and are willing to share the fruits of their labor with others.

In Afghanistan (2004-2005) and in Timor-Leste (2006-2008), I had the privilege to share my passion and experiences in the field of organizing and operationalizing multilaterally-supported non-partisan domestic election observer groups. This was through the U.S.-based organization, the National Democratic Institute (NDI). The Institute's work was significant and its programs were directly making positive impacts in people's lives by engaging them in the process of establishing democracy in their country. In many occasions with program partners, moved by my experience from the International Visitor Program, I would remind them that the funds that we are using to support the domestic election observation effort are fruits of labor from U.S. citizens. To bring it closer and more personal, I would add that some of them are my relatives. Through their taxes, they have entrusted a portion of their hard-earned income to contribute to the Afghan and Timorese nation building. Therefore, these funds are to be used well and accounted properly.

I believe I was chosen as a participant in the IVP because of my close to two decades of volunteer work with the Philippines' National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel). Created in 1983 to thwart clear and imminent threats by government to subvert the people's will in the ballot, the movement pioneered that brand of citizen engagement in elections and was indeed first-in-the-world. The cause for clean and honest elections that are reflective of the true will of the people allowed Namfrel to inspire one million individuals to contribute time, talent and treasure in order to protect the integrity of the ballot. From the movement's success in 1986 when it exposed massive fraud in the presidential Snap Elections of February, that model had since been spread and emulated in many countries.

One thing common that founds volunteerism, be it in the Philippines, in the U.S., in Afghanistan, or in Timor Leste, and perhaps elsewhere, is the “power of the ask”. A worthy cause still has to appeal to the generosity and goodwill of people. Only when asked, and therefore made part of a worthy effort, will people's hearts truly open and share. I carry this affirmation wherever I go. Thanks to the affirmations through the International Visitor Program, the National Democratic Institute and Namfrel. It is indeed a light carry.

In Gratitude: Thank you, Lord, for making me witness to inspiring and moving acts of volunteerism. I pray, that I, too, would be able to move and inspire others in my own.