Making sense of the numbers

CHEERS TO the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) for its groundbreaking work in providing the public accessible information on government spending, campaign finance, and budget transparency.

PCIJ launched an online data journalism project called MoneyPolitics last May 3. The microsite has four content categories—Public Profiles: information on elective and appointed officials including their public spending and social network, Campaign Finance: information on election contributions and expenditures, Public Funds: information on how government raises revenues and spends taxpayers’ money, and Elections and Governance: information on governance indicators, political clans, and elections and socio-economic statistics.

According to PCIJ, the microsite “aims to help citizens appreciate the documents, data, and digits behind stories, issues, and events. PCIJ also offers MoneyPolitics as a reference tool for journalists, students and teachers, civil society advocates, public officials, election regulators, development agencies, and Filipino voters at home and overseas.”

PCIJ gathered data and documents from various government offices such as the Commission on Elections, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Office of the President, Congress, the Department of Budget and Management, the Department of Finance, and the Department of Interior and Local Government, among others.

PCIJ said MoneyPolitics is a “work in progress” and that it “will feature a steady harvest of new and more datasets in the coming years.”