PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has approved the creation of a single operating system for all government transactions to ensure ease of doing business in the country, the Presidential Communications Office said on Wednesday.
In a statement following a sectoral meeting on improving bureaucratic efficiency held on Tuesday, the PCO said President Marcos directed different agencies working on a code or policy to consider the differences between the national bureaucracy and local government units (LGUs).
There are technological reasons, as well as political and local considerations to comply with the law and the government has to deal with those issues, the President said.
“I think it may help when you’re writing the code or when you’re putting the system together, you’re going to have to think about the differences between the national bureaucracy and the different LGUs,” the chief executive added.
“Those are the things that we still work with. The questions we were trying to bring it down to that level, and the local governments are really part of that thing. You’ve seen how it can happen. That’s what we need to address,” Marcos said.
Government officials who met the President said that’s the reason why the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA), are now mapping the processes of different agencies so they can be able to collate them in a single system.
Even LGUs, they said, are covered by the ease of doing business law, particularly under Section
11, which requires them to set up and traditionalize electronic business one-stop-shop, which will standardize LGU requirements.
Among those who met with the President were DTI Secretary Alfredo Pascual, Interior and Local Government Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr., Information and Communications Technology Undersecretary David Almirol Jr., ARTA Director General Ernesto Perez and Customs Commissioner Bienvenido Rubio.
Assist
The President also directed the DICT and ARTA to assist LGUs in adopting the Business Permits and Licensing Systems in All Cities and Municipalities (BPLS) system.
Officials also said they conducted stakeholder consultations involving all government agencies to look at their processes and requirements with the aim of encouraging them to use a unified application form, linking them to the network that sets up a “one-stop-shop.”
The proposal, they said, is to extend the coverage to other types of business as what the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) did in creating a one-stop-shop for big-ticket investments.
Officials from those agencies are looking to integrate all the processes for migrant workers, maritime, as well as shipping industries, as they noted the improvement and the processes by integrating all government processes through data sharing.
The best way to reduce requirements and processing time, they said, is for government agencies to adopt data sharing; this way, documents submitted in one agency are no longer required in another.
To ensure the strengthened implementation of streamlining and digitalization initiatives, ARTA is seeking approval of the proposed revisions on Executive Order No. 482, series of 2005, to make it responsive to the current situation and also the issuance of corresponding Administrative Orders and EOs.
To ensure the administration’s efforts in streamlining and improving the efficiency of government services, the government, through the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) program, is carrying out TradeNet, Manual for the Reengineering of Business Permits and Licensing Systems in All Cities and Municipalities (BPLS Manual) and Streamlined Guidelines for the Issuance of Permits, Licenses, and Certificates for the Construction of Shared Passive Telecommunications Tower Infrastructure (PTTIs).
