MANILA, Philippines — The Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) has ordered all government agencies to act on all pending applications and automatically approve them if they come with complete requirements before March 7, to comply with the prescribed processing time for transactions under the Ease of Doing Business law.
In a press conference, ARTA director general Jeremiah Belgica said the agency has issued a new memorandum circular to hasten the processing of government transactions and get all government agencies to comply with the 3-7-20 rule for processing transactions in line with Republic Act 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act.
Under Memorandum Circular 2020-02, ARTA said all government agencies should follow the prescribed processing time of three workings days for simple transactions, seven working days for complex transactions, and 20 working days for highly technical ones.
All government agencies are directed to immediately conduct an inventory of all pending simple, complex and highly technical transactions, and to act upon pending applications and automatically approve them if they are complete and fully paid before March 7.
In addition, government agencies are required to submit a report to the ARTA on all applications, request, licenses, certifications, permits, clearances or authorization it issued before March 7.
To ensure there are no aging pending applications with agencies beyond the 3-7-20 rule, Belgica said ARTA in partnership with the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) would be conducting joint random compliance audits starting March 7.
He said if agencies would still have aging pending applications by March 7, the ARTA and PACC would investigate, conduct lifestyle checks and file administrative and criminal cases against officials, if necessary.
“We need to make our government agencies realize that the law is here and there are no more excuses for their slow processes and inefficiencies. We have given them time and options and now, we can no longer tolerate sub-par service,” he said.
Earlier, the ARTA required all government agencies to submit their citizen’s charter which provides information on requirements for each application or permit, the time it would take for the transaction to be completed, and the fees.
Belgica said of the 4,667 government agencies, 1,726 have already submitted their citizen’s charter and are being reviewed by the ARTA.
Bulk of those yet to comply with the requirement are municipalities and have asked ARTA to give them more time to submit as they are in far-flung areas.
Belgica said ARTA is giving the municipalities until March 31, to submit their citizen’s charter.
“Generally speaking, government agencies try to comply…There’s a small number of processes tagged as cannot be within 20 days because they call it multi-agency approach, it bounces back to different agencies. In that case, there has to be special request that should be given to ARTA. We do recognize and sit with the agency when they have particular transactions that involve multi-agency effort,” he said.