One of the key features of the country’s decentralization is the creation of numerous mandated local participatory bodies meant to advance and institutionalize civil society participation in governance. These are multi-sectoral bodies with powers that range from policy-making to policy oversight to being a consultative platform. However, whether civil society representation in these bodies translates to actual decisions embodying the people’s voice and agenda remains a big question.
The latest report from Philippine Institute of Development Studies (Guce-Medina 2025) noted the following findings that re-confirms the mere procedural functionality of local special bodies while lacking of substantive quality in the participation it facilitates:
- “…formalized mechanisms are necessary but insufficient for advancing participatory governance principles in LDCs.
- LGUs demonstrate relatively high compliance in involving CSOs in LDC committees and budget processes, yet perception gaps reveal that LGUs systematically overestimate CSO engagement, particularly in provinces and municipalities.
- Results also suggest that LGUs tend to equate the sufficiency of participation with compliance to minimum operational requirements set by national policies, while both LGUs and CSOs underscore persistent gaps in CSOs’ technical capacity to meet the varying demands of policymaking across LGU types and budget phases.
- Furthermore, analysis of participation frequency reveals that more recurrent activities do not necessarily translate into more substantive engagement. Instead, biannual to quarterly activities approximate an optimal frequency for meaningful participation, especially in high-functioning LDCs with stronger agenda-setting and deliberation practices.”[1]
An earlier paper published by Accountability Research Center (Aceron 2019) underscores “the importance of institutional design to participatory governance reforms” and that participatory reforms, such as the mandatory local participatory bodies, “become successful when complemented by other institutional and state democratic capacity-building reforms and when they are part of a broader progressive change agenda.”[2]
To expand and deepen student representation in the Local School Boards (LSBs) and Local Health Boards (LHBs), Multiply-Ed started a campaign called Save a Seat (SAS) to push for student representation in Local School Boards. The Save a Seat campaign has one main proposition: enabling participation of direct stakeholders will make local participatory bodies functional and more responsive. To date, Save a Seat has been successful in getting its proposed policy adopted in Himamaylan and Pasig.
Meanwhile, a recent policy adopted by the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) is also expected to help in expanding sectoral representation in local special bodies. DILG Memorandum Circular 2025-060 released in July 2025 mandates additional representatives including “high school representatives” in Local School Boards and representative organizations such as from the youth sector in Local Health Boards.
On July 26-27, Multiply-Ed and PRO-Health shall convene a learning collaborative on engaging mandated local participatory bodies, particularly the LSBs and LHBs. The aim is for different groups to share experience and generate cross-cutting lessons on how these bodies can be more effective in advancing accountability and reforms.
The learning collaborative will feature successful campaigns of Multiply-Ed’s Save a Seat that were able to push for student representation in Local School Boards, namely in Himamaylan and Pasig. It will also inquire about the hurdles in seeing this through in other Multiply-Ed and PRO-Health localities. Experience by other partners in engaging participatory bodies shall also be shared. The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and a representative from Congress will also be invited to discuss their latest plans and programs to strengthen mandated local participatory bodies.
[1] Medina-Guce, Czarina, Lawrence G. Velasco and Anne Marie T. Rey. Local Development Councils: Baseline and Recommendations for Optimizing Participatory Processes. Philippine Journal of Development Volume 49 (2025), Number 2. https://www.pids.gov.ph/publication/philippine-journal-of-development/local-development-councils-baseline-and-recommendations-for-optimizing-participatory-processes
[2] Aceron, Joy. 2019. Pitfalls of Aiming to Empower the Bottom from the Top: The Case of Philippine Participatory Budgeting. Working Paper 4. Washington, DC: Accountability Research Center. https://accountabilityresearch.org/publication/pitfalls-of-aiming-to-empower-the-bottom-from-the-top-the-case-of-philippine-participatory-budgeting/
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