Open data in the Philippines

The state of open data in the Philippines

On paper, there should be a good open data ecosystem in the Philippines:

1. It is one of the founding members of the Open Government Partnership (since 2011).
2. It has adopted the Open Data Charter.
3. It ranked 22/100+ countries with a score of 55 in the 2016 Open Data Barometer which measures how governments are publishing and using open data for accountability, innovation and social impact.
4. It ranked 18/187 countries with the score of 73 in the 2020 Open Data Inventory which measures how complete a country’s statistical offerings are and whether their data meet international standards of openness.

But if you ask most people about their experiences working with open data in the Philippines, they will tell you that it's difficult or there is none. The country has no open data law and its Freedom of Information (FOI) mandate comes in the form of an Executive Order (EO No. 2, series of 2016). Furthermore, it is not uncommon to see people and institutions hide behind the Data Privacy Law in order to avoid releasing documents, data, and information. It is not a stretch to say that there is a big disconnect between the state of open data on paper and actual state of open data in the Philippines.

Open data and FOI

Freedom of Information (FOI) and Open Data have similar goals but they are not the same thing (especially with how FOI is constructed right now in the country).

• FOI is reactive or demand-driven. Data is released only after a request is made and approved.
• Open Data is proactive or supply-driven. Data is made available regardless of whether there is a request for it or not.
• Open data gives permission in advance. Data users do not need to submit a request in order to access data. The barrier to data access is minimal to none.

Be that as it may, it is important to understand that open data and FOI are not adversaries nor are they meant to replace one another. Rather they are complementary tools towards the same goal of building more transparent, trustworthy, and accountable institutions. There are instances where FOI is the better approach than open data and vice versa.

Where can I find Philippine data?

There are countless sources of Philippine data—open or otherwise. I curate a repository known as Awesome Data Philippines where I list down data sources for the Philippines that I've used or encountered such as Open Data Philippines and the Philippine Geoportal.

I also have some videos on how to access data from these data sources.