Well, change takes time

A friend’s passport is expiring a year from now, but he’s already started the process for renewal. Not exempt from the first crucial non-negotiable step of getting an appointment via www.passport.gov.ph/appointment, he has heard of horror stories about Filipinos trying to book for a time slot.

During the time he had been “refreshing” the Department of Foreign Affairs appointment site for passport processing, he says he came across a July 2016 story that already lamented about the having to wait for more than three months to get an appointment.

In fact, newly appointed DFA Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano in May last year also vowed to scrap the online appointment scheme, and speed up the process for Filipinos to renew or get a new passport. That was about a year ago, and unfortunately for Filipinos, they are still hitting the “refresh” button on their computers to get that appointment.

Well, like my friend, they have resigned themselves to the reality that change does not happen overnight, even in the Philippines with a president who won on a “Change is Coming” campaign slogan two years ago.

Long unimaginable delays in getting a new passport is just one of the many examples of bureaucratic red tape – and perhaps also, an indication of the prevalence of corruption – in the Philippine government.

New law

Towards the end of May, the President signed The Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018 (EBD-EGSD), a new law that aims to cut bureaucratic red tape and corruption in government to strengthen the Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) of 2007.

The passage of the new law came after the publication of the World Bank’s Doing Business 2018 report and the International Institute for Management Development’s 2018 World Competitiveness Rankings.

In the former, the report showed a drop of 14 rungs from 99th in the 2017 report to 113th among 190 countries in terms of ease of doing business, while the latter survey reported that the Philippines had fallen by nine notches, from 41st to 50th among 63 economies in terms of competitiveness.

It is widely accepted that a country’s competitiveness is closely associated with its government’s ability to facilitate the entry of new businesses, and consequently, generation of more jobs and improvement of standards of living.

The reports published by the World Bank and the IIMD simply confirmed the weaknesses of the decade-old ARTA. The question now is whether the EBD-EGSD would be able to achieve what the ARTA failed to do, especially since a closer look at the new law does not seem to fundamentally offer anything radically new.

Comparing ARTA with EBD-EGSD

Well, there’s the provision for an Anti-Red Tape Authority where the aggrieved public may report a violator of the EBD-EGSD law. The enforcing authority will have its own policy and advisory body, the Ease of Doing Business and Anti-Red Tape Advisory Council (EODB/ARTAC).

The EBD-EGSD law also calls for a Central Business Portal to collect application data, and a Philippine Business Databank that will give government agencies access to information to verify businesses. The EBD-EGSD law provides for up to a maximum of three years to be operational.

Over all, the new law has stiffer requirements than ARTA on the number of days that permits should be processed, number of signatories, as well as penalties for civil servants found guilty of non-compliance. The new law also provides for all application forms to be standardized.

Both laws have a provision for the establishment of Citizen’s Charter to provide a checklist of requirements of each and every type of application or request, with corresponding fees, and a maximum time to deliver the service.

Enforcement and sorting out processes

It seems that enforcement will be the key to determining whether the new anti-red tape law will deliver the desired reforms aimed at improving the bureaucracy’s services, including faster processing time for permits and other government requirements for businesses to start or continue operating.

Senate Majority Leader Miguel Zubiri, who authored and sponsored the new law, had explained for the media a few of the salient features of the EBD-EGSD after the President signed the EBD-EGSD law. In particular, he mentioned passports.

The Philippines’ problem in processing new passports shows that new laws or improved enforcement may not be the solution. There is no problem getting a passport after you’re able to book an online appointment – which is really the problem that is not addressed by the EBD-EGSD law.

This is almost the same case with vehicle plate numbers. One is able to register a vehicle in record time as long as all paperwork is in order and payment is made; getting the plate number, together with the physical vehicle plate, is the problem.

In the same breath, businesses complain of the lengthy, confusing, overlapping, and repetitive red tape that comes with the Philippines’ complex system of licensing, not to mention restrictions on foreign ownership.

The EBD-EGSD law could be regarded as a second part of ARTA, and hopefully would provide more teeth to the government’s campaign to bring down red tape levels to more manageable levels.

The government’s aim to join the ranks of the top 20 percent of countries globally recognized for its ease in doing business before the end of President Duterte’s first term in 2022 is laudable, but one that needs more work other than passing a new law.

Well, that’s the Philippines’ version of change for you.

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