The Philippine budget cycle consists of four main processes: . o o . Budget preparation (budget call; stakeholder engagement; technical budget hearings; executive review; consolidation, validation and confirmation; presentation to the President and Cabinet; President's budget); Budget legislation (House deliberations, Senate deliberations, bicameral deliberations, ratification and enactment, President's enactment and veto); Budget execution (guidelines and program, budget execution documents, allotment and cash release programming, allotment release, incurring obligations, allocation, disbursement); and Budget accountability (performance targets and outcomes, budget accountability reports, quarterly agency performance review, year end budget performance assessment review, audit). For more information on the Philippine budget and the budget cycle, visit the website of the Department of Budget and Management at http://www.dbm.gov.ph and click on the Budget ng Bayan icon. See also Enhancinq Citizen Participation in Public Finance written by Leonor Magtolis Briones (2011). For more information on local budgets, see Towards an lnformed Citizens' Participation in Local Governance: Sourcebook on Local Public Finance, written by Ma. Gladys Cruz-Sta. Rita, Cielo no, Leilani Galvez and Jessica Reyes-Cantos (2011). lnterestingly, the key result areas of the President's Social Contract mention "human rights" only under "just and lasting peace and the rule of law," thus highlighting government's apparent perception that human rights are limited to civil and political rights. To achieve the key result areas, innovations and refinements were made to the national budget process; these include: zero-based budgeting,5 citizen participation in budget process, bottomup planning and budgeting, program approach,6 and gender mainstreaming in the budget. Of these innovations and refinements, three are described below: citizen participation in the budget process, bottom-up planning and budgeting, and gender mainstreaming in the budget. The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) defines citizen participation in the national budget process as "a democratic process involving people empowerment whereby concerned citizens organized as CSOs pursue their legitimate and collective interests by monitoring effectiveness of P/A/Ps and in so doing become partners of the Government in the formulation, monitoring, evaluation and improvement of the national budget." (DBM, NBC 539, 2012) To participate in the national budget process, a civil society organization (CSO) must enter into a 5 Zero-based budgeting is a budget approach which involves reviedevaluation of major ongoing programs and projects to: (a) establish continued relevance given current developments/directions; (b) assess whether objectives are achieved; (c) ascertain alternative or more efficient ways to achieve objectives, and (d) guide decision-makers on whether resources should continue at their current levels, or be increased, reduced or discontinued. See Department of Budget and Management, National Budget Circular 539, "Guidelines on Partnership with Civil Society Organizations and Other Stakeholders in the Execution of the Agency Budget," 2'l March 2012. 6 The Program Approach focuses fiscal space or uncommitted resources on the five key result areas of the Social Contract by programming needed funds across departments through a coordinated and holistic approach. Sae Department of Budget and Management, National Budget Memo 114, "Adoption of Program Approach for FY 2013 Budget Preparation," 30 March 2012. 42