2025 Open Budget Survey: Going beyond the numbers

Assalamu alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.

- AMENAH F. PANGANDAMAN

Assalamu alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.

There is one thing I have always appreciated about meeting people from different communities. No matter where the conversation begins, it eventually finds its way to the things that matter most in everyday life.

The national budget is no exception. During my years at the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), I discovered that what people wanted was not a lesson in public finance but to understand how the budget affects them—where public funds go, how and why certain programs are receiving more support, and how government decisions ultimately find their way into classrooms, hospitals, farms, and neighborhoods.

That is why the results of the 2025 Open Budget Survey remind me of the work we pursued at the DBM.

The Philippines received a transparency score of 76 out of 100, well above the global average of 45 and higher by one point than the 2023 OBS Survey result. I welcome this, not just because of the number but because I knew the work behind it. Progress in transparency does not happen overnight. It comes from years of improving how information is prepared, presented, and shared so that more people can actually understand it. To me, that is what makes this result meaningful. Transparency is not only about making information available—it is about making it useful to the people it belongs to.