Palace asked to monitor compliance to speedy public service

MANILA, Philippines – Senate Minority Leader Ralph Recto asked Malacañang yesterday to make sure government agencies keep their promise of providing speedy public service, in the light of the proposed P3.35-trillion national budget for 2017.

Recto asked that government agencies failing to deliver speedy service be punished, especially as President Duterte abhors long queues in government offices.

“Malacañang must know and monitor the promises its underlings and appointees made to speed up the delivery of services,” the senator said.

Recto cited the pledges – attached to budget requests of agencies – as ranging from a seven-minute response time of firemen to alarms, to a 15-minute maximum crime scene arrival of police officers, delivery of car plates and stickers in seven days and a “gone in 40 seconds” timeline in immigration arrival gates.

Other targets include the pledge of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration that “100 percent of all OFW (overseas Filipino workers) requests for assistance be acted upon within 24 hours and the Department of Transportation’s vow that light rail trains will have an average speed of 50 kilometers per hour.”

Recto said the Philippine Statistics Authority, keeper and issuer of civil registration records, had promised to release 96 percent of requested documents “within the prescribed time.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs has vowed to render service that will be rated “good or better” by 90 percent of passport applicants.

The Bureau of Customs has also issued timetables in the processing of cargoes.

The National Bureau of Investigation, meanwhile, has committed to process clearances within 10 minutes, while the Land Registration Authority has promised a 20-day deadline in the issuance of land titles.

Recto said even infrastructure projects are now bound by performance guarantees, with the Department of Public Works and Highways boldly assuring that 100 percent of road projects will be completed on time.

He, however, called for a change in many performance benchmarks, as some are misleading and do not guarantee fast service.

He said “processing time” target for some documents is clocked the moment the document is handed over to the government employee and does not count the time people spend in queues.

“If the processing time really takes 10 minutes but you spent five hours waiting in line, where’s the fast service in that?” Recto asked. “So this kind of target cleverly camouflages red tape.”

As part of recent budgeting reforms, “countable outputs” are linked to appropriations, with specific funds given to an agency in exchange for a specific set of deliverables.

But Recto’s call is limited to anti-red tape pledges, which he stressed Malacañang must closely monitor, as Duterte was elected on the promise of quick government action “and his legendary disdain for government offices that make people wait.”

Recto said the administration should also take a second look at the performance guarantees and assess if the deadlines, for example, are too long.

He said many agencies also did not submit “promissory notes,” so there is no basis to gauge performance and reward good work.

Many promises contained in the previous budgets, he noted, especially on traffic, have disappeared in the 2017 national budget.

For easy monitoring, Recto urged Malacañang to collate in one menu all the important targets, particularly the maximum processing time for commonly requested documents, in the proposed budget, which he said is a contract with the people.

Recto said it would not be a mere enumeration of promises, but essentially a listing of the provisions of law “because the national budget is a republic act.”