No red tape in 3 agencies; LTO poor performer - CSC

CEBU, Philippines - The Civil Service Commission-7 recognizes the excellent performances of the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-ibig), the Metro Cebu Water District and the Department of Foreign Affairs in eliminating red tape, and points at the Land Transportation Office-7 as “having poor performances in some areas of its services.”

“What we are trying to eliminate is the bureaucratic red tape. It is not an equivalent of corruption but a means of committing corruption,” Judith Chicano, regional director of the CSC-7, said.

In line with this, they are again reminding all heads of constitutional bodies, departments, bureaus and agencies of local government units, government-owned and controlled corporations with original charter, as well as state universities and colleges to strictly impose Republic Act 9485 or the Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007.

This aims to promote transparency in government with regards to the manner of transacting with the public by requiring each agency to simplify frontline service procedure, formulate service standards to observe in every transaction and make known these standards to the client.

The CSC together with the Development Academy of the Philippines, Ombudsman and Presidential Anti-Graft Commission conducted a series of consultative meetings or survey with various stakeholders to gather comments and recommendations as well as to discuss issues in the implementation of the Act.

The survey will be used to obtain information and or estimates of hidden costs incurred by clients to access frontline services which may include, but is not limited to, bribes and payment to fixers.

The head of the office or agency will be primarily responsible for the implementation of the said rules and will be held accountable to the public in rendering fast, efficient, convenient and reliable service.

All transactions and processes are deemed to have been made with the permission or clearance from the highest authority having jurisdiction over the government office or agency concerned.

On failure to comply with the rules, appropriate charges may be filed against the head of office or agency under existing law and rules before the appropriate forum.

Editha Luzano, assistant regional director of CSC-7, emphasized that all applications and or requests in frontline services shall be acted upon within the period prescribed under the “Citizen’s Charter”, which in no case shall be longer than five working days in the case of simple transactions and 10 working days in the case of complex transactions from the time the request or application was received.

Further, CSC being the central personnel agency of the government is to revisit and, as necessary, reinvent the performance management system of the bureaucracy.

The development of the performance management system for the civil service was initiated by a reassessment of the existing Performance Evaluation System.

This resulted to the Office Performance Evaluation System which is a new strategy that will establish a culture of performance and accountability in the bureaucracy.

Through the said system, the CSC aims to establish a high-performance culture by aligning individual objectives to the organizational objectives.

OPES is a new way of managing performance in the civil service that serves as an evaluation strategy for assessing office performance or the collective performance of individuals within the smallest operating unit of an organization. – Johanna T. Natavio/MEEV   (FREEMAN NEWS)