Palace initiative to rightsize bureaucracy backed
DEPUTY Speaker Rufus Rodriguez and Marikina City Rep. Estella Quimbo have supported the Palace initiative to rightsize the bureaucracy to save almost P15 billion a year in taxpayers’ money.
“This effort deserves the support of Congress. In fact, the legislature should match it with a similar undertaking,” Rodriguez, representative of Cagayan de Oro’s Second District, said.
“I fully support the administration’s policy on government rightsizing and agree with the pronouncements of DBM Secretary (Amenah) Pangandaman. Ensuring that the bureaucracy is sufficiently and optimally manned, with rationalized functions, would save billions worth of people’s money that could be used to support economic recovery programs and the provision of basic social services. Under the 2022 General Appropriations Act, personnel services account for P1.4 trillion or 28 percent of the total budget. Even an incremental reduction of total payroll costs can provide significant funding for much needed initiatives, including fuel subsidies and ayuda for our farmers and MSMEs. Rightsizing means that the number of staff positions in government is sufficient to ensure that all mandates are fulfilled at the lowest possible cost. Rightsizing means that outdated and redundant positions can now be abolished, while new but necessary positions can be created,” Quimbo said.
Quimbo added that “rightsizing initiatives will also facilitate the implementation of important laws such the Universal Health Care Act, which mandates that every Filipino must be registered to a primary provider. At present, there is a lack of primary care providers in the public health system. The move to rightsize government at this point will allow concerns of understaffing in essential sectors to be addressed. Similarly, with the Mandanas-Garcia ruling and efforts to implement the devolution of essential services to local governments units (LGUs), rightsizing initiatives will also allow the transfer of certain staff positions to its proper place, whether in the national government or LGU.”
Rodriguez said there are many redundant agencies, councils, offices, task forces, and similar executive and legislative creations that could be abolished or merged without sacrificing the functions of the surviving entities.
“Just look at the annual budget and one will find that there are councils and offices in many departments that overlap or duplicate the functions of the bureaus or agencies under these departments,” Rodriguez said.
He added that these redundant offices should be the first to go in the rightsizing program.
Rodriguez pointed out that overlapping of functions has created friction between or among government agencies.
He cited the recent tug-of-war between the Department of Labor and Employment under then Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello lll and the newly created Department of Overseas Filipino Workers.
He called on Congress to go slow in acting on proposals to create new agencies until the executive branch has determined the “right size” of the bureaucracy and its proposed streamlining program is enacted into law.
“We should reduce or deny appropriations to offices the executive branch wants to phase out or merge,” Rodriguez said.
He said the affected personnel should be offered additional retirement and separation benefits in addition to what they are entitled to under existing laws.
