3 bills filed seeking to amend red tape law
IN LINE with President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s call to streamline government processes, three bills have been filed seeking to remove bureaucratic red tape by amending some provisions of Anti-Red Tape Act of 2007.
Senate Bill No. 982, filed by Senator Panfilo M. Lacson, Sr.; Senate Bill No. 932, filed by Senator Ralph G. Recto; and House Bill No. 2148, filed by 1-PACMAN party-list Representatives Enrico A. Pineda and Michael Odylon L. Romero are all aimed at shortening the period of application process to just three days for simple transactions and seven working days for complex transactions.
Currently, the minimum action time prescribed in the Anti-Red Tape Act is five working days for simple transactions and 10 working days for complex transactions.
Moreover, Mr. Lacson’s bill also seeks an automatic approval or extension of permits and licenses should the government agency or authority fail to act within the prescribed period.
“In case a government office or agency fails to approve or disapprove an application and/or request for renewal of a license, permit or authority subject for renewal, within the prescribed period, said permit, license or authority shall automatically be extended until a decision or resolution is rendered on the application for renewal,” Mr. Lacson’s bill read.
However, this proposed amendment will not be applied if the permit or license or authority could pose a danger to the public, to health and to morals, or if the permit or license sought includes natural resource extraction activities.
Mr. Lacson, who authored the Anti-Red Tape Act, said in his explanatory note that “it is imperative to visit and amend certain provisions of the Anti-Red Tape Act to further enhance the efficiency of our public servants through the reduction of the number of days by which government offices must act upon on the applications or requests submitted by the public.”
For their part, Messrs. Pineda and Romero said their version of the bill “may significantly contribute to the improvement of the access to quality social services, the enhancement of the competitiveness of the local industries and the development of the Philippine economy.”
Mr. Recto, for his part, said: “Bureaucratic bottlenecks need to be reduced, if not totally eliminated, to improve the level of competitiveness of the Philippines, reduce incidents of corruption, and minimize the compliance cost to government administrative requirements.”
During his State of the Nation Address, Mr. Duterte directed all department secretaries and heads of agencies to reduce the requirements and processing time for all applications.
Sought for comment, Guillermo M. Luz, private sector co-chairman of the National Competitiveness Council ( NCC), said that aside from the amendments provided in the bills, what they would also push for would be the automation and simplification of processes.
“Actually, the most important things is automation. It is one thing to streamline within three days but if it still manual, it still takes long so our goal at NCC is not just three days or less,” Mr. Luz said in a phone interview. —