PH maintains lead in Southeast Asia in 2025 budget transparency survey

The Philippines maintained its lead among Southeast Asian countries on transparency, accountability, and public participation in the budget process, the 2025 Open Budget Survey (OBS) results show.

The country received a 76-point budget transparency score, one point higher than its score in 2023. Following the Philippines is Indonesia (70 points), the only other nation in the region in the ‘sufficient’ bracket.

The survey was conducted in 2025, when the country's Budget Secretary was economist Amenah Pangandaman.

This was the Philippines’ second consecutive achievement of securing the top spot in budget transparency, with the first occurring in 2023.

For the Philippines, the 2025 survey noted a decrease in the availability of budget information by “reducing the information provided in the Enacted Budget by decreasing data on revenue and data on debt.”

With the results, the recommendations for the Philippines in the survey are to:

• Strengthen the Executive's budget proposal through comprehensive multi-year projections and disclosure of fiscal risks and long-term sustainability;
• Include in the year-end report more comprehensive data on debt and policy and performance information;
• Improve the comprehensiveness of the enacted budget; and
• Improve the comprehensiveness of the mid-year review through the disclosure of individual sources of revenue and program-level expenditure detail

The OBS assesses central government budget accountability.

Managed by the nonprofit International Budget Partnership (IBP), the survey systematically evaluates national budget processes, government budget decisions, and public access to budget information. — Lyjah Tiffany Bonzo/BM, GMA News