Case Study 3. Citizen Participatory Internal Audit in Odiongan, Romblon: Institutionalizing Shared Accountability Odiongan municipality in Romblon province demonstrates how internal auditing, traditionally a closed bureaucratic function, was transformed into a participatory governance tool through the Citizen Participatory Internal Audit(CPIA). Initiated in 2021 by the Internal Audit Services Unit, the CPIA emerged from both necessity and innovation as the municipality faced severe internal audit capacity constraints, a challenge common across local governments. Drawing on risk-based and participatory audit frameworks, Odiongan municipality reimagined accountability through the CPIA as a shared and collaborative civic responsibility rather than a purely administrative task. Under the leadership of Ivan Jon Ferriol, Head of the Internal Audit Services Unit, and endorsed by Trina Firmalo­Fabic, then-Municipal Mayor of Odiongan, Romblon, the CPIA institutionalized collaboration between municipal auditors and members of the Odiongan People’s Council, representing groups such as women, persons with disabilities, farmers and youth. Through consultations and technical training, the Internal Audit Services Unit capacitated CSOs to participate in audit planning, implementation and reporting. This created a form of Upward Agenda Setting, in which ordinary citizens, through their sectoral organizations, could shape the priorities and performance criteria of internal audit activities—redirecting the locus of oversight toward responsiveness. In one notable case, the CPIA of Odiongan’s citizen feedback mechanisms led to the adoption of a municipal communications policy that improved public access to grievance channels and digital directories. This outcome exemplifies Horizontal Accountability, where community members co-produce evaluative knowledge with the LGU and their findings directly inform policy reform. In this structure, accountability is not only exercised over government but also with it—building relational trust and transparency between institutions and citizens. However, the CPIA also reveals the structural limits of participatory mechanisms when not formally institutionalized. Despite support from the mayor and a technical working group, the proposed CPIA ordinance stalled amid political contestation. According to Ferriol, the Department of Budget and Management declined to support the initiative, citing inconsistencies with national internal audit standards and the need to uphold the hierarchy of applicable laws. This further demonstrates the structural monopoly of the state in accountability functions, limiting transparency and citizen ownership. Moreover, participation remains uneven: While women, persons with disabilities and youth are represented, LGBTQIA+ people and Indigenous groups remain excluded due to accreditation barriers and limited organizational infrastructure. Unpaid participation also poses significant burdens on women and caregivers, underscoring the need to recognize civic participation as a form of labor. The Odiongan experience underscores that participatory audit mechanisms, while promising, require legal recognition, sustained resourcing and gendered inclusion to be transformative. For replication, national and local governments must formalize co-audit mechanisms that embed CSO participation in fiscal governance cycles—from planning to evaluation—while ensuring that marginalized sectors have the capacity and institutional protection to engage meaningfully. By grounding accountability in collaboration and formalizing citizen oversight in bureaucratic systems, Odiongan’s CPIA moves governance closer to feminist principles of co-governance: redistributing evaluative power, privileging lived experience and aligning transparency with care and justice. Synthesis The experiences of KABILIN, KAKASA and the CPIA in Odiongan reveal that transformative gender-just governance depends on the relationships built between state and society. When collaboration is grounded in trust, recognition and shared responsibility, governance moves beyond symbolic inclusion toward meaningful co­creation. KABILIN and KAKASA demonstrate how partnerships between women’s groups and LGUs transform participation into daily democratic practice, prioritizing the lived realities of minorities in local ordinances, family life and community priorities for the benefit of the whole community. The CPIA illustrates that accountability gains depth when citizens are empowered to jointly monitor and evaluate government performance. Together, these initiatives show that Upward Agenda Setting and Horizontal Accountability are necessarily mutually reinforcing: Genuine mechanisms for participation require systems for communities to enforce accountability by sharing responsibility. When practiced together, they transform governance into a shared endeavor of care, vigilance and learning anchored in state–society relationships capable of producing enduring, gender-just change. 20 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V.