Resources

This fifth issue of the TPA Now! Special Education and Health Policy Edition highlights efforts to make public education inclusive to marginalized learners. It shares existing efforts of the government, as well as lessons learned by Multiply-Ed on what civil society can do to make schools more inclusive based on the experience of Gayon Albay LGBTQ Organization Inc. (Gayon). Gayon is an organization whose mission is to empower local LGBTQIA+ communities in the Bicol Region.

To test its spot-checking tool in flood control projects in a provincial setting, the Government Watch (G-Watch) conducted a spot-checking of flood control projects (FCPs) in La Union, specifically in the Municipalities of Bacnotan and Luna, on October 21, 2025. 

This report, which supplements the earlier report on Pasig, highlights key findings, insights and recommendations from the La Union pilot run of G-Watch’s spot-checking of flood control projects.

Government Watch (G-Watch) conducted a pilot spot-checking of infrastructure projects in Pasig on September 23-24, 2025 to answer whether and how citizens can monitor flood control projects (FCPs). A total of 19 projects in Pasig City were checked by a 7-person team consisting of four G-Watch Center team members, two volunteer-engineers and one staff of the Pasig local government.

This paper, the 4th in the Special Policy Edition of TPA Now!, presents the situation of teachers and their lived experiences, the state of response of the government to improve teaching quality and the ways forward based on the Multiply-Ed E-Skwela forum on February 14, 2025, Multiply-Ed’s phase 2 monitoring and recent related reports and studies.

This third issue of the TPA Now! Special Education and Health Policy Edition underscores the latest updates on Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) and presents the areas needing collaboration among key stakeholders to protect and defend 4Ps amid the challenges that it is facing, especially the cut in its budget by almost 50%.

This special series of TPA Now! is a collection of news features and policy briefs on education and health. It covers actions, issues and agenda central to two ongoing major initiatives of G-Watch: PRO-Health and Multiply-Ed. 

This 2nd installment of TPA Now! Special Policy Edition  presents the situation of mental health in the country, including current policies and efforts to provide mental health services. It then highlights the results of the monitoring done by PRO-Health, a civil society initiative on health rights organizing, particularly on mental health. It then presents recommendations on how mental health services can be improved in the country, particularly underscoring the importance of getting the perspectives and inputs of the youth in mental health policy-making process.

TPA Now! Paper Series is back. This time, we zero in on cross-cutting health and education policies.

This new special series is a collection of news features and policy briefs on education and health. It covers actions, issues and agenda central to two ongoing major initiatives of G-Watch: PRO-Health and Multiply-Ed. 

Elections have shown serious weaknesses in holding power to account and in enabling societies to identify leaders who are well-qualified to address crucial issues and problems affecting the people. Yet, elections continue to be a necessary democratic exercise due to the lack of a viable alternative in collectively deciding on who will rule.

The paper looks into the subtle ways civic space is being constrained even in the context of supposed constructive engagement with the government and how these were overcome by accountability frontliners based on the experience of Multiply-Ed. It ends with lessons and recommendations on how accountability frontliners can be sustainably protected as they engage governments, which is crucial in winning back the civic space. 

Last year, G-Watch released the PRO-Health Monitoring Report: The Imperatives of Strengthening Community-Based Health Services. The report presents the findings of PRO-Health monitoring conducted by about 300 volunteer-monitors in 13 sites all over the country from April 2023 to February 2024.

This publication showcases the information, education and communication (IEC) materials developed during the Multiply-Ed learning exchanges. It aims to serve as a repository of IEC materials that can be used by the Multiply-Ed network and partners in their advocacies and campaigns. It also enumerates guideposts in developing youth-led IEC materials based on the reflections and discussions during the Multiply-Ed learning exchanges. 

This report presents the findings of PRO-Health monitoring conducted by about 300 volunteer-monitors in 13 sites all over the country from April 2023 to February 2024. The monitoring covered 257 health units mostly visited twice and interviewed 794 health workers and 1,364 citizen-beneficiaries using three monitoring tools designed according to the multi-level monitoring approach of G-Watch.

In 2022, 237 volunteer-monitors of Multiply-Ed from 53 schools all over the country conducted a school-level monitoring on the implementation of the Department of Education Basic Education - Learning Continuity Plans (BE-LCP).

What is inside the report?

This report documents the highlights of the learning exchange convened by Government Watch (G-Watch) in Cebu City on April 24-26, 2024. The learning exchange reflected on the ongoing health accountability initiative of G-Watch with Accountability Research Center (ARC) called Promoting Rights Organizing for Health or PRO-Health, particularly looking into advocacy and engagement to improve government responsiveness in health.

During the said learning exchange, the following were accomplished that were presented in the report:

In this report, G-Watch presents its review of evidence on the access and quality of reproductive, maternal, newborn, children and adolescent health (RMNCAH). The report summarizes key points from 80 related reports, studies and documents reviewed, presenting the profile of Philippine health governance, including the legal framework, the key policy actors, and the major programs and services; the barriers and challenges in the access to quality reproductive, maternal, neonatal, children and adolescent health; and the relevant gaps and opportunities. 

The 10th issue of TPA Now! looks into the accountability system in health fiscal reforms, particularly in the spending of health budget from the Sin Tax.

Based on more than two decades of experience of Government Watch (G-Watch), simple and easy-to-use monitoring tools enable civil society to monitor government policies, programs and services. Monitoring tools make a highly technical process of monitoring accessible to and doable for citizens, allowing them to check whether standards set in government’s policies and plans are followed in the actual implementation and facilitating their generation of actionable evidence that inform their advocacies and proposed actions to governments. The experience of Multiply-Ed further validates this.

The paper, the ninth in the TPA Now! Paper Series that started in 2021, shows the strength of using multi-level context analysis and engagement in enabling citizen movements to be strategic — to have a nuanced understanding of the state of governance and democracy; to identify entry points; and strategize in a context of closing civic space and to set agenda for future advocacies.

Last March 3-8, 2022, Government Watch (G-Watch), in collaboration with Accountability Research Center, convened its leaders all over the country for its first national in-person event: the 2022 G-Watch national meeting and learning exchange held in Pasig and Baguio.

This report presents the key findings from the data-gathering activities undertaken by Multiply-Ed to lay down the current state of policy and response, map the standards and baseline the emerging practices in the efforts of the government towards learning continuity and resiliency of the public education system. MultiplY-Ed or X-Ed is a project of the Center for Youth Advocacy and Networking (CYAN) and Government Watch (G-Watch) that aims to set up a youth-led, multi-sectoral, and multi-level monitoring of education in the time of COVID-19.