REVENUE MEMORANDUM CIRCULAR NO. 43-2014 issued on May 22, 2014 publishes the full text of Joint Memorandum Circular No. 2014-01 entitled “Open Data Philippines” issued by the Office of the Presidential Spokesperson (OPS), Secretary of Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and Undersecretary of Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning Office (PCDSPO).

        The Circular aims to inform agencies of the Open Data Philippines and the roles and responsibilities of each agency thereto.

         Initially, the OPS, DBM and PCDSPO constituted an ad-hoc Task Force in April 2013 to begin development of the data.gov.ph. The Open Government Data Philippines (OGDP) Task Force aims to work with all government agencies to populate data.gov.ph with their datasets in order to tender this as the definitive website for public government data. It aims to make Philippine public government data searchable, understandable and accessible.

        The Circular shall not be construed as a policy for mandatory disclosure of any and all government datasets. Agencies holding datasets directly related to national security or defense and other datasets disclosure of which is prohibited by law and other existing regulations shall not be required to submit these for disclosure through the program.