Philippine Data Summit marks
Int’l Anti-Corruption Day on Dec. 9

THE UNITED NATIONS will lead the global observance of International Anti-Corruption Day on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2015. Its theme highlights a global clamor — Break the Corruption Chain!

In the Philippines, the Office of the Ombudsman, in partnership with the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, will mark the day with the conduct of an inaugural “Philippine Data Summit.” Its theme, a clamor of all Filipinos, — Open Data We Want, Open Data We Need, Open Up Government.

The forum will be held from 8 am to 5 pm at the Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria Hotel in Quezon City.

Organized by the Office of the Ombudsman and the PCIJ, the event is being supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.

The Summit celebrates the shared, firm resolve of state agencies, civil society organizations, civil servants, professionals, academe, and private sector to take the first steps in building a meaningful open data infrastructure that could serve as a pillar of good governance, transparency, and accountability in the Philippines.

It assumes greater urgency and relevance in light of the synchronized national, legislative, and local elections on May 9, 2016 that will usher in a new political administration.

Commissioner Heidi Mendoza of the Commission on Audit (recently appointed Undersecretary-General for Oversight Services of the United Nations) will deliver the keynote address. Commissioner Mendoza is the original proponent of the conduct of this multi-stakeholder national data summit.

A panel of resource persons will discuss thematic issues in the data supply-demand chain. They include:

* Deputy Ombudsman for Luzon Gerard Mosquera, who is also lead prosecutor in the pork-related corruption/plunder cases pending with the Sandiganbayan;

* Budget Undersecretary Richard Bon Moya of the Open Data Task Force of the Philippines;

* Atty. Nepomuceno Malaluan, lead convenor of the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition; and

* Mr. Mario Demarillas of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners-Philippines.

The Summit and subsequent activities seek to achieve the following objectives:

* Harness the supply-demand chain of data on public policy and governance from the perspective of data producers and data users.

* Enhance the skills, capacity, and practice of all stakeholders in appreciating, accessing, sorting, analyzing, and popularizing data with governance metrics to inform public policy discourse, advocacy, and state-citizen engagement.

* Promote the cross-training, data-sharing, and institutionalization of data teams of content producers and tech teams in public agencies and civil society.

* Foster media and citizen awareness, use, analysis, and demand for data, in both quantity and quality, as these are relevant to public policy discourse, graft investigation and prosecution, delivery of basic services, and citizen engagement and participation for transparency, accountability, and good governance. — PCIJ, December 2015