The Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), in partnership with the Philippine Open Government Partnership (PHL-OGP) Steering Committee2 and Development Alternatives, Inc. – United States Agency for International Development (DAI-USAID), conducted the Open Government Partnership (OGP) National Summit 2016 with the theme: “Pursuing the Local Governance Reform Agenda in Open Government Partnership: A Public Dialogue of Stakeholders for Feedback, Inputs, and Commitments for the Philippine-OGP Third Action Plan (2015-2017)”, on March 3-4, 2016 at the Dusit Thani Manila Hotel. The Summit brought together approximately 200 reform and development partners from the national and local government, civil society organizations, business groups, and academic institutions, with the aim of broadening the reach of OGP and deepening the commitments, links, and work on local coalitions towards achieving open government reforms.

This documentation specifically focuses on the local governance discussions within the National Summit. This report is developed for reference of local governments for information regarding the OGP commitments already being implemented through programs like the Bottom-up Budgeting, Seal of Good Local Governance, and Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, as well as, partnerships already established to promote open government reforms. Furthermore, the report aims to guide local governments on how they can help sustain these reforms and partnerships in light of the forthcoming May 2016 elections.

1. A full summit report is available through the PHL-OGP Steering Committee Secretariat under the Department of Budget and Management. This report is prepared by the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP) and released on March 25, 2016 to focus on the local governance discussions and ways forward.
For questions or clarifications on this report, kindly contact the ULAP Secretariat through Executive Director Czarina Medina-Guce at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., (02) 5346787, 5346789.

2. The OGP Steering Committee is composed of the International Center for Innovation, Transformation and Excellence in Governance (INCITEGov), the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), the De La Salle University-Jesse M. Robredo Institute for Governance (DLSU-JRIG), in partnership with the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

3. As per the National Summit program, breakout discussions were organized to cater to civil society organizations (CSO) and local government topics. Particularly, the civil society participants used the breakout time for consensus-building and elections of their representatives to the PHL-OGP Steering Committee. While the CSO activities were ongoing, the local government discussions were facilitated by ULAP.