THE Philippine Commission on Women (PCW) badly needs an infusion of additional womanpower.
Government auditors, in a report on the PCW released on December 1, 2024, revealed that 317 out of 628 or 50.48 percent of the Gender and Development (GAD) Plans and GAD Plan Budget (GPB) submitted by different agencies in 2022 were not reviewed within the required 30-day process.
The figure reflected a decline year on year since there were fewer GAD Plans and GPBs due to delays in 2021 at 264 out of 620 submissions or 42.8 percent.
Auditors said the actual status of the PCW backlog could be a lot worse since there were eight GPBs submitted in 2022 and 2023 that did not even undergo any review.
More pressing, however, was the audit team’s discovery that 38.46 percent, representing 473 of covered agencies, did not even bother to submit their GPBs or GAD Plans to the PCW.
On top of all these, 124 government agencies or 10.08 percent, were not even registered in the Gender Mainstreaming Monitoring System (GMMS).
The Magna Carta of Women (RA 9710) requires all government departments, their attached agencies, offices, bureaus, state universities and colleges, government corporations, and local government units to formulate their respective annual GPBs to support gender perspectives in their policies, programs, and activities.
The GAD seeks to address identified women and gender issues through activities that agencies may propose every year, subject to the PCW’s approval. This was made mandatory under the Joint Circular No. 2012-01 issued by the Commission, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).
PCW was supposed to acknowledge receipt of the GPB within two days and complete the review of the body of the proposal within 15 days. Where there are revisions to be made or clarifications required, the agency is given 30 days to resubmit its GPB.
Instead, auditors found that the process has been routinely delayed by up to 35 days on average, while the worst one recorded took 658 days.
“According to the head of Policy Development, Planning, and Monitoring and Evaluation Division (PDPMED), the delays experienced during the review process can be attributed to two factors such as the shortage of manpower and the fast turnover of employees due to frequent change of assignments or resignations,” the COA said.
The PCW has already drawn a catch-up plan, which includes hiring of contract of service personnel as reviewers, training the reviewers to increase their proficiencies, breaking down the submission timetable by batches to make the workload more manageable, and developing monitoring and tracking status to address non-review of GPBs.
