Facade of the Senate of the Philippines building. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Senators aired their support on the proposal to rightsize the bureaucracy on Wednesday.
The backing of Senators Joel Villanueva, Francis Escudero, Loren Legarda, and Sonny Angara came after the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) pushed for the rightsizing to save government funds.
“We support moves from the national government to improve its efficiency and institutional capacity to deliver public service,” Villanueva said in a statement.
While Villanueva supported the move, he raised two concerns: the unfilled 178,128 authorized government positions and the “significant” number of government workers under job order or contract of service.
By addressing these questions, the DBM can determine which government agencies can be rightsized, said Villanueva.
Escudero likewise agreed to rightsize, sharing that he did the same move when he was the governor of Sorsogon.
“I believe that this is the right path to take insofar as the administration is concerned,” he told reporters in a message.
“They just have to pour in the time to study which positions are redundant or unnecessary and to make sure that those that may be affected are given proper compensation on top of whatever benefits from [Government Service Insurance System] in order to help them get by and start anew amidst these trying economic times,” he added.
Noting that she lodged a similar bill in the 17th Congress, Legarda favored DBM’s push to rightsize and said that she will refile it in the 19th Congress.
“I fully support the proposal of DBM to rightsize the bureaucracy… There are government agencies that have functions that overlap or are redundant. This makes them ineffective and inefficient, and these also entail unnecessary expenses. Government efforts must be redirected toward carrying out its fundamental duties for the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery,” she said in a separate message to the media.
For Angara, the call is “probably overdue” but he will not oppose the mandate of the DBM.
“I think the call to streamline the bureaucracy has been there for some time and is probably overdue. I personally would not be averse to delegating the power to the executive particularly the DBM as that is part of its mandate,” he said in a message to reporters as well.
“Bukod sa paglikha ng pambansang budget nandyan din yung trabaho niya bilang tagapangasiwa ng Human Resources ng gobyerno,” the senator continued.
(Aside from creating a national budget, it is the DBM’s job to be the government’s Human Resources manager.)
Earlier, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said that with the proposal, the government may save “a significant amount of the budget” that could be tapped as funding for programs in the sectors of infrastructure, social services, health, and agriculture.