Assessing Public Participation in Air Quality Management in Metro Manila

1. Assessing Public Participation in Air Quality Management in Metro Manila

2. The Firefly Brigade [ an advocacy group promoting bicycling, non-motorized, and sustainable transport[ since 1999, it has organized a yearly fifty kilometer bicycle ride around Metro Manila to show the feasibility of cycling in the city, as well as a World Car-free Day ride every September.

3. [ part of a global network of civil society organizations in Africa, Latin America and Asia [ monitoring government implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, in particular goals 1 on poverty reduction, 7 on environmental sustainability, and 8 on new partnerships

4. [ a global civil society coalition promoting public access to information, participation, and justice in decision-making that affects the environment[ seeks to ensure that people have a voice in the decisions that affect their environment and their communities[ TAI partners promote transparent, participatory, and accountable governance as an essential foundation for sustainable development[ To achieve this goal, partners: > form national coalitions > assess government progress using a common methodology > raise public awareness > set priorities for improvements in policy and practice

5. TAI Methodology The assessment consists of writing case studies on the three access principles. Each case study examines the laws relating to the each case, looks at how the relevant government agency in each case tried or did not try to provide access, and how effective the provision of access was in determining outcomes.

6. TAI Methodology The TAI assessment process involves the selection of cases from sectors important to the economy in order to illuminate key gaps in law and practice. It uses a toolkit of 148 research questions, or indicators, that NGO coalitions use to measure performance. These indicators are divided into four categories: Access to Information, Public Participation, Access to Justice, and Capacity Building. And three topics: Law, Effort, and Effectiveness. Each topic is further divided into subtopics.

7. TAI Methodology

8. Thailand First Assessment, 2000-2001 • Legislation provides for the right of people to access official information, but no existing laws to promote public participation in decision-making. • Most government agencies provide the public with environmental information in a passive manner. • The government continues to avoid promoting public participation in decision-making processes, including in policy-making, planning, and project implementation,

9. Thailand, 2nd Assessment, 2005 { An improvement in the legal structure to promote access to information, but laws lacking clarity so in practice access depends on official “disposition” { Constitution guarantees public participation in decision-making but no organic laws except for public hearings – limited to airing opinions – minimal progress from first assessment { Limited capacity building for access

10. Indonesia There is no strong legal base that makes it mandatory to provide information to the public, or provide a mechanism that ensures public participation, and to consider public opinion in decision-making.

11. The Air Quality Management Case in Metro ManilaWhy Metro Manila? • The most polluted urban area in the country, mostly from motor vehicles • A Clean Air Law was passed in 1999, but according to a World Bank report in 2002, the government • lacked “data and systematic analyses,” and had poor cooperation among its agencies charged with implementing various aspects of the law. • one of the key challenges that had to be addressed was “moving from public awareness to participation.”

12. The legal framework for participation The 1987 Constitution encourages all forms of public participation in principle and its associated rights such as the right to information. The Clean Air Act of 1999 recognizes the access principles explicitly and states its intent to honor them. Other laws and departmental orders were examined for how they provided or did not provide access rights.

13. The law clearly recognizes the right of citizens to be informed of the nature and extent of the potential hazard of any activity, and to have access to all public records The law also provides several venues for public participation in the formulation, planning, implementation and monitoring of policies and programs and in the decision-making process. The law provides several forums for hearing the various types of non-compliance offenses. However, the law does fall short on building capacity in promoting access, an oversight that could have been corrected with an administrative order. Assessment - Law

14. Assessment - Practice Effort – government fails to comply fully with the law’s provisions. It is behind schedule in providing the required annual air quality status report, a report not widely disseminated to the public. There is no public registry for facilitating information and records access, and a central data bank for air quality data has not been created or is inaccessible to the general public. Consultations do not involve the general public, limit participation to a small select group of NGOs, and seem to be driven mostly by government agenda.

15. Assessment - Practice Effectiveness – the result is the low level of public participation in implementing the law and in decision-making with regard to air quality programs and policies. Participation has been limited to a few NGOs and there has been little effort in broadening participation to the general public, including other civil society groups. The information available to the public is often dated, of low quality, and is of limited use in terms of spurring public action to pursue change.

16. Recommendations 1. Government must make a better effort to fully comply with the law’s on information access and public participation. It must create the information infrastructure (registries, central data bank) necessary to facilitate access and ensure that people’s rights are upheld. 2. Capability building is necessary to make access a concrete reality, not just an aspiration. 3. Government must remove the legal and administrative impediments to full access and transparency. 4. NGOs should strive to broaden public participation in air quality matters.