Government Signs IRR of Ease of Doing Business Law in the Philippines
The Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA), Civil Service Commission (CSC), and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) came together on July 17, 2019 to sign and publish the highly anticipated Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act 11032, otherwise known as the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Services Law (EODB Law) in Manila, Philippines.
Answering directly to President Rodrigo Duterte, the newly appointed Deputy Director General of ARTA, Lawyer Ernesto Perez expressed the agency’s efforts to utilize this law to reform government transactions and processes by enforcing the new airtight set of competitive public service standard guidelines.
“This IRR gives ARTA the teeth to ensure that regulatory reforms will not just be on paper but will translate into concrete action beneficial to the business sector and the ordinary people transacting with the government,” said Perez.
They are said to be working not only to make everything easier for the Filipino people but also to a better standard by directly addressing and combating bureaucratic red tape on both business-related and non-business related transactions, such as but not limited to the following: permitting, licensing and the issuance of any privilege, right, reward, clearance authorization or concession, and frontline services.
In the prescribed “3-7-20” rule, all governmental offices and agencies, executive and local government units, as well as government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) have to abide by the rules on the processing of transactions. The same is also the case for completing them, simple transactions are to be done within three days, while complex transactions are given seven days to be completed and highly technical transactions a maximum of 20 days.
All violations of the law will result in administrative sanctions and according to ARTA Director General, Lawyer Jeremiah Belgica, with the use of new media the violations can easily be brought to light and the offenders can be held directly liable for their actions.
All detailed complaints are encouraged to be reported and filed through the ARTA website’s Complaint Filing page. The agency will also accommodate concerns through their landline: 478-5091 and 478-509 as well as their social media accounts on Facebook or Twitter.
“[This] gives our people time to speak out and say enough is enough of corruption and unnecessary delays in government service,” Perez stated during the signing of the law’s IRR.
The Philippines is now standing at 124th out of 190 countries in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report. Secretary Ramon Lopez of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) expects that with the new reforms from the EODB law, the country will move up 30 places higher in rank by next year’s annual report with the government’s commitment to be free from business process corruption and inefficiency.
