New law allows president to reorganize, streamline executive agencies

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.  (Screengrab from Bongbong Marcos/Facebook)

MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. has signed a measure that authorizes him to reorganize and streamline agencies within the executive branch to ensure more efficient and responsive delivery of public services.

Republic Act No. 12231, also known as the Government Optimization Act, was signed by Marcos on August 4 and published on the Official Gazette website on the same day.

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Under this law, the government is mandated to provide “adequate resources to support an organization’s essential role, scope, and level of governance, and minimize, if not eliminate, redundancies, overlaps, and duplications in its operations and simplify its rules and regulations, systems, and processes, while protecting the welfare of civil servants and other government workers.”

The Government Optimization Act, a priority measure of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council, allows the president to scale down or discontinue functions, programs, projects, or activities that can be more effectively carried out by the private sector or have already been devolved to local government units.

The president may also transfer or integrate functions from one agency to another, merge or consolidate agencies, transfer agencies, units, or positions to another department, or split agencies or units with overlapping functions, among other actions.

The law also established a Committee on Optimizing the Executive Branch, tasked with reviewing the mandates, functions, programs, projects, operations, organizational structures, and workforce of various government agencies.

However, teaching and teaching-related positions, as well as military and uniformed personnel, are excluded from the law. /gsg