(ARTA) Anti-red tape law demands more teeth and funding
House of Reps, Philippines – If we want to cut red tape, we need to put more teeth in the anti-red tape law and augment Anti-Red Tape Authority‘s (ARTA) budget, not create another law.
The call was made by Representative Paul R. Daza (1st District, Northern Samar), Vice- chairperson of the Committee on Appropriations and sponsor of ARTA’s budget in the 2021 budget deliberations and Deputy Speaker Luis Raymond “LRay” Villafuerte (2nd District, Camarines Sur).
Daza and Villafuerte, are staunch advocates in the cutting of bureaucratic red tape. They both called on the President and colleagues at the Senate to push for the strengthening of the current law. The law is aptly called Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act (RA 11032) and increasing ARTA’s budget.
“We definitely understand the concerns of the President and our colleagues at the Senate. Therefore, we need to give more powers to ARTA. If we will also ensure strong implementation of the law and augment its budget, ARTA is more than enough. We don’t have to give extra work to the President. ARTA is already his work horse; we just need to amend the law,” Daza and Villafuerte stressed.
Limitations of ARTA
The lawmakers explained that in the current law, ARTA can only recommend streamlining. However, it is not mandatory for agencies. Therefore, they propose to make streamlining mandatory. They call for ARTA to recommend preventive suspension of erring officials through the President if there are blatant violations.
The legislators explained that ARTA cannot impose sanctions. For example, if a government official had been found to be at fault after a thorough investigation. ARTA cannot yet implement a preventive suspension. Instead, ARTA still needs to go through the tedious filing of case either through the Ombudsman or Civil Service Commission. This process takes time and practically renders the investigation done at the ARTA level inutile.
“After discussions with ARTA Director-General Jeremiah Belgica, we agreed to propose the filing of an urgent bill amending RA 11032 to Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and then push for its inclusion in the priority bills of the 18th Congress,” Daza and Villafuerte added.
ARTA has already made some progress. ARTA supported the Department of Information and Communications Technology and partner agencies in streamlining the permitting process for shared passive telecommunications tower infrastructure (PTTI). Now it requires 35 of the documentary requirements. Thus, cutting down the processing time of 241 days to 16 days only. In a short period, 990 permits were already issued out of 15,000 backlogs in applications. Previously it took 86 documentary requirements.
Improvement in World Bank Ranking due to Anti-Red Tape Authority
In the World Bank Doing Business Report (2020), the Philippines ranked 95th out of 190 economies. An improvement of 29 notches from the country’s 124th rank during the 2019 survey. Industry experts credit this partly to streamlined processes.
Reps Daza and Villafuerte emphasized the more important goal is to streamline government transactions. The process should ultimately prevent or lessen violations within the system. “Carrot-and-stick approach will help but what we are trying to do is change the culture toward more meaningful engagement rather than punishment,” the Northern Samar and Camarines Sur representatives opined.
They then called on their colleagues in both chambers to ensure that ARTA’s budget will be augmented. Thus, it can accomplish its mandate. For FY 2021, ARTA proposed a budget of P586 million. However, the Department of Budget of Management approved P146 million only.
The ARTA law amends Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007 (RA 9485) and mandates all government agencies, national or local, Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations, and government instrumentalities located in the Philippines or abroad to comply with prescribed processing time, namely, 3 working days for simple transactions; 7 working days for complex transactions, and 20 working days highly technical applications.
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