Commission on Appointments logo. INQUIRER.net/ Jerome Cristobal
MANILA, Philippines — Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr., a proponent of bureaucratic rightsizing, called on the Senate to look into the possible passage of their version of the government streamlining and cost-cutting measure passed by the House of Representatives as soon as Congress resumes session on Jan. 22
Villafuerte assured teachers, healthcare workers, soldiers, and other uniformed personnel in the public sector that they would be exempted from the House-approved plan to rationalize the bureaucracy and ensure a seamless and more responsive delivery of programs and services to Filipinos.
Villafuerte is among the authors of House Bill No. 7240, or the proposed National Government Rightsizing Act, which makes it optional for Congress, the judiciary, state universities and colleges, the Office of the Ombudsman, and other constitutional commissions, as well as local government units to implement their respective rightsizing plans.
Rightsizing would also be optional for state-run firms under the Governance Commission for government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) under the draft measure which is a consolidation of 16 bills on government rightsizing or streamlining.
HB 7240, which was passed on its third and final reading by the House in March, provides that rightsizing would be carried out over three years and would ensure retirement and separation benefits to workers who would be affected.
1.7M government workers
Villafuerte noted, “The Philippines has about 1.7 million [government] workers — according to 2022 data of the Civil Service Commission—who are spread across 187 government agencies and GOCCs that have functions that either overlap or are redundant.”
He pointed out, “As personnel services take almost 30% of the national budget annually, rightsizing the government will surely lead to the appropriate utilization of the State’s financial resources,” adding that HB 7240 aims to “rationalize the operations of offices from and among various government offices having related functions, through streamlining the positions of offices in the government bureaucracy.”
HB 7240 would give the president the authority to abolish, create, and transfer national government offices including departments, bureaus, offices, commissions, boards, councils, and all other entities attached to or under their administrative supervision.
It would also create a Committee on Rightsizing the National Government, chaired by the executive secretary, to oversee the implementation of this streamlining plan.