BARMM Staff Accomplish Course 2 and 3 of ASoG’s Bangsamoro Parliament Online Learning Series
March 25, 2021
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Learning never ends for the Bangsamoro Parliamentary Staff as they proceeded with Courses 2 and 3 of the Bangsamoro Parliament Online Learning Series (BPOLS) last February 8 to March 19, 2021 organized by the Ateneo School of Government (ASoG), Westminster Foundation for Democracy, British Embassy in Manila and Access Bangsamoro. Course 2, entitled “Public Finance Management and Building a Gender-Sensitive Parliament”, ran from February 8 to 26; while Course 3, focusing on “People’s Parliament: Engaging the Public in Building the Institution”, ran from March 1 to 19, 2021. Both courses had three modules delivered by international and local practitioners and field experts. For Course 2, Mr. Geoff Dubrow, a strategic adviser on the roll-out of a gender budgeting tool in the Canadian Department of Women and Gender Equality; Ms. Maxine Tanya Hamada, former Assistant Secretary of the Department of Budget and Management; and Sir Paul Silk, a former Clerk in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom and to the National Assembly for Wales, delivered the three modules respectively.  For the third course, Sir Paul proceeded with Module 1 on “Building the Parliament through the People”; Ms. Margaret Curran, a former Parliament Member in Glasgow, discussed about Module 2 on “Public Engagement in Political Party Formation”; and Ms. Czarina Medina-Guce, a faculty member at the Ateneo de Manila University, delivered the third module on “Political Change Management: The Key Roles of Staff to Maintain Parliament’s Operation”.  To officially conclude Courses 2 and 3, key personalities from the organizing institution gave their congratulatory messages to the BPOLS learners. Dr. Ronald U. Mendoza, Dean of the Ateneo School of Government and Atty. Dion Romano, Head of ASoG’s Ateneo Bangsamoro Initiative acknowledged the participants as the new set of ASoG leaders who will lead in bringing change to the Bangsamoro region, for the better future of the Bangsamoro people. Aside from Ms. Curran and Ms. Medina-Guce extending their best hopes for the learners, resource speakers from Course 2, Mr. Geoff Dubrow, Ms. Maxine Tanya-Hamada, and Sir Paul Silk, also expressed their excitement on how the Bangsamoro Parliamentary Staff would apply their new knowledge in their government. Deputy Head of Missions Alastair Totty and Ms. Anna Snowgale Rupa from the British Embassy of Manila, and Ms. Eleanor Tuck from the Westminster Foundation for Democracy thanked the participants as well for their active involvement in the online learning sessions. On behalf of the learners, Mr. Abdulnasser Ales, Ms. Roseraine Macagaan, Ms. Jehan Alangca-Madid and Ms. Johaira Samad manifested their gratitude to the organizers and resource persons for enabling them to improve their professional capacities as parliamentary staff. Mr. Ales was grateful with the way the topics were discussed comprehensively and the accommodation of the resource speakers to their different queries. Ms. Macagaan shared her gratefulness for not only for the opportunity to learn new ideas, but to discuss about issues not normally talked about in the parliament: “I was relieved that the elephant in the room is addressed because women empowerment is not usually talked about. It is high time that our competencies are recognized out there, the way we, women, take care of our households”. 
For Ms. Alangca-Madid, she shared, “I found myself visualizing how to apply what I learned here into action. The course is really relevant for us in our current set-up. For this course, my personal takeaway is that change is really inevitable. Maintaining the parliament operations or sustaining its gains are part of the change process itself”. Reaffirming her classmates’ insights, Ms. Samad also adds, “The course empowers us to take charge in our role and to equip our fellow staff. It further emphasized on us that we have to be deeply committed and involved in the governance process”.
The second online course aimed to provide the Bangsamoro parliamentary staff with the foundational principles on public finance management that would enable them to optimize the fiscal autonomy bestowed upon the region. Further, the course gave them fresh insights on the importance of making their parliament gender-responsive and the mechanisms they should put in place to make it happen as they go through the transition process. Course 3, on the other hand, focused on equipping the Bangsamoro parliamentary staff with necessary knowledge on the importance of public engagement and the practical strategies to carry it out. Moreover, as a new government, the course provided them with tools that would help them navigate the inevitable changes that they have to face as they go through their transition.
The series successfully concluded with 45 participants finishing the Course. |
