Duterte shakes up Cabinet

Two new clusters added to expedite infra dev’t, promote participatory governance

Two new clusters to hasten infrastructure development and promote participatory governance in the country have been created by President Duterte, effectively driving a Cabinet reorganization.

Under Executive Order No. 24, signed last May 16, the Chief Executive has divided the Cabinet into the following clusters: *Infrastructure; *Participatory governance (formerly good governance);

*Human development and poverty reduction; *Security, justice, and peace; *Climate change adaptation and mitigation and disaster risk reduction; and *Economic development. Apart from the two new Cabinet groups, the President, under the Executive Order No. 24, required all Cabinet members to uphold transparency and fight corruption as well as meet annual performance targets.

“There is a need to re-organize Cabinet clusters to streamline their functions and improve existing procedures to achieve a more efficient and effective integration of programs, activities

and priorities,” the President said.

Under the EO, the President assigned the secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to lead the newly created “Infrastructure Cluster.” The DPWH is currently headed by Secretary Mark Villar.

The new cluster is assigned to enhance delivery of public infrastructure by ensuring efficient and transparent management of assets and resources.

It must also improve the quality and reliability of public infrastructure and public investment efficiency; strengthen the government’s implementation capacity and budget execution on infrastructure projects; and ensure equitable access to infrastructure services.

“The government’s infrastructure development initiative aims to contribute to inclusive growth and poverty reduction and to promote safe, efficient, reliable, cost-effective, resilient, and sustainable infrastructure,” the order read.

The government had earlier launched a massive infrastructure program to improve transportation and connectivity and spur economic development across the country.

The same EO designated the secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) to lead “Participatory Governance Cluster” that aims to enhance citizen participation in governmental processes. The DILG is currently headed by officer-in-charge Catalino Cuy, but retiring Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo Año was earlier named by President Duterte as incoming secretary.

The “Participatory Governance Cluster” takes the place of the “Good Governance Cluster” previously created by the President at the start of his term.

Among the tasks of the cluster are to formulate mechanisms to enable the public to understand, rationalize and implement government programs as well as strengthen public consultation mechanisms.

In line with good governance objectives, the President has required all Cabinet clusters to adopt these goals.

It must uphold transparency in government transactions and commit to combat graft and corruption as well as strengthen the capacity of agencies to link their budgets with performance outcomes and allow the public to monitor and evaluate such data.

Each Cabinet cluster must also formulate a “performance and projects roadmap” that will identify critical targets and identified annual deliverables.

A Cabinet cluster system secretary at the Office of the President has also been created to monitor various cluster directives and commitments.