CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter provides an overview of the related

literature and studies after the thorough search done by

the researcher. This discusses History and Content of

Ease of Doing Business Law, Challenges in Ease of Doing

Business Law Implementation, Anti-Red Tape Act and The

Local Government Unit’s Role.

Numerous studies of Anti-Red Tape Act and Ease of

Doing Business Law were conducted to determine

gaps,implementation effectiveness, agencies’compliance,

and related developments. Romero(2019), World Bank (2018)

and Ani (2015) share the same thoughts in the amendment

of Anti-Red Tape Act to Ease of Doing Business and

Efficient Government Service Delivery Act. They agreed

that there should be equity, avoidance of nepotism and

social connections, increase of awareness and improvement

in the the country’s performance in the delivery of

service to public. Amendment of law does not guarantee

its perfection, hence, there are still challenges in the

implementation of it. Pestilos (2019) and Crismundo

(2018) both highlighted that the law may or may not be

applicable to a certain agency depending upon the

complexity of the transaction. There were also some

researchers (Alegata and Caelian,2019; Gan, 2017;

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Dalingwater, 2015; Caren, 2012) who showed in their

studies that the state implemented the laws less

effectively.

In this study, the LGU as an agency was also

assessed on its compliance to EODB Law. Its

implementation was measured based on rules and

regulations in order to identify challenges and open

rooms for improvement to elevate government service

delivery performance.

HISTORY AND CONTENT OF EASE OF DOING BUSINESS LAW

Republic Act 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business and

Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018 is an

act that aims to streamline the current systems and

procedures of government services. It was the landmark

law of the Duterte administration that addresses priority

number 3 of its 0+10 Point Socio-economic Agenda. This

particular agenda pertains to improving the

competitiveness of ease of doing business in the

Philippines. Signed into law on 28 May 2018, the law

effectively amends Republic Act 9485 or the Anti-Red Tape

Act of 2007.

The strengthened version of the law was poised to

facilitate prompt actions or resolution of all government

transactions with efficiency. It was applicable to all

government offices and agencies in the Executive

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Department including local government units (LGUs),

government-owned or -controlled corporations, and other

government instrumentalities, located in the Philippines

or abroad, that provide services covering business-

related and non-business transactions as defined in the

IRR (Anti-Red Tape Authority, 2018).

Since the said law has widen its scope, there were

studies which tried to evaluate specific components of

the law, its implementation and effect on the agencies

they were applicable into. Based on a study in Nueva

Ecija, the success of policy implementation can be fully

achieved when coupled with a change of behavior on both

part of the service providers and public clientele.

Bureaucratic equity followed by inculcation of core

values by the service providers with the embodiment of

the norms of conduct and ethical standards contribute in

the delivery of an efficient government service.

Institutions must have equity by strictly implementing

the law fairly and without bias, avoiding nepotism and

social connections just to avoid the penalty and

liability in committing prohibited acts stated by the

said law. The core values of the institution must be

inculcated together with the norms of conduct stated in

the code of conduct and ethical standards not only to the

employees but also to all public officials who provides

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services to their public clientele(Romero, et.al., 2019).

There was also a need to propose inputs to policy which

may increase the awareness of local government units of

different economies on the simplification of the policies

of the different indicators used in measuring doing

business (Ani, 2015). This supported the creation of Ease

of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service

Delivery. It is said that compliance to a policy is not

easy especially because of what we call “fear of change”

but nevertheless, the compliance and effect of the policy

is still the one that will tell its success.

According to Gabriel (2018), there were three core

components of ARTA namely, (1) Citizen’s Charter, the

bench mark of performance to know the standard of service

that the clients can demand to their service providers;

(2) Frontline Services, the public can access the

government service and (3) Report Card Survey

(RCS) which served as a feedback mechanism that

measures the quality of service of the agency. These

three core components of ARTA were also present in the

amended law. In addition, RA 11032 promotes Zero-Contact

Policy between the government employees and clients

except preliminary assessment of request and the

evaluation of the complacency of the requirements

submitted or unless it is strictly necessary. This widens

the scope of frontline services that primarily receives

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the requests and documents of the public clientele. This

attempted to reduce red-tapes since the processor has no

direct contact to the clients. Also, RA 11032 reduced the

processing time which shall not be longer than 3 working

days in simple transactions, 7 working days in complex

transactions and 20 working days in the applications that

may endanger the public health, safety, morals, policy

and highly technical transactions.

The maximum time prescribed can be extended only

once with the same number prescribed in the CC provided

that the agency will provide written notification signed

by its client of the reason on the delay of service. This

attempt of the government aimed to improve the ranking of

the Philippines as it experienced its worst decline among

countries in Asia-Pacific, ranked 113 out of 160

countries in Doing Business Report (World Bank, 2018).

CHALLENGES IN EASE OF DOING BUSINESS LAW

In the case of some government agencies, they were

experiencing difficulties to adhere with the maximum

timeline of government transactions since they had a lot

of complex transactions being catered. One of these is

the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines

(IPOPHL), they find it challenging to comply with the

Republic Act 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business (EODB)

and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018

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since it took them four to 18 months to complete a

trademark transactions (Crismundo, 2018). It also seemed

that only clerical transactions benefited from the act.

All other deadlines in government services had to contend

with the proverbial Filipino time delay, and sadly, the

public will have to manage their expectations and ease

way from other alternatives (Pestilos, 2019).

ANTI-RED TAPE ACT (ARTA) AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

Some researchers’ (Alegata and Caelian,2019; Gan,

2017; Dalingwater, 2015; Caren, 2012) findings showed the

less effectivity of the state’s implementation of ARTA.

ARTA’s governance provisions was summarized in five

points. First, ARTA provided a set of universal service

standards that all clients can expect from all frontline

services of the government, e.g., simple and complex

transactions should be completed within five and ten

days, respectively. Second, it mandated the

implementation of various process improvement

initiatives, such as process reengineering and signature

reduction. These initiatives were legally mandated to

ensure that efficiency is promoted by reducing excessive

and unnecessary rules and regulations of these frontline

services. Third, the law put the publication of Citizen

Charters (CCs) as its centerpiece provision

(Mendoza,2011).

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 ARTA defined a CC as an official document, a service

standard, or a pledge, that communicates, in simple

terms, information on the services provided by the

government to its clientele. Posting this information,

which usually includes step-by-step procedures, time to

complete the service, documentary requirements, among

others, acted as the primary transparency mechanism of

ARTA. Fourth, agencies were also expected to establish

their own complaints and redress system as a means of

empowering those accessing the services with recourse

when the quality of service is less than expected.

Lastly,the law put criminal liability not only to

operational “fixers” but also to those working in

collusion with fixers, who are public and non-public

servants. As a means of promoting compliance with ARTA

provisions, deviations from the published charters were

made subject to criminal proceedings(Government of the

Philippines, 2007).

For more than ten years that the Anti-Red Tape Act

was being practiced, it is said that State Universities

and Colleges were compliant to the provisions of ARTA but

its delivery needed to be strengthened according to a

study. Other areas of the said act needed to be improved

in order to promote quality services to satisfy the

public clientele. This study showed that offices in the

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SUCs had a uniform level of customer satisfaction worthy

of commendation (Alegata and Caelian, 2019).

There were also legal frameworks that safeguarded

the right of the public against unscrupulous government

transactions but not specifically on anti-red tape which

include Republic Act Number 6713 or the “Code of

Conduct and Ethical Standards for Government

Officials and Employees” articulating reforms on

public administrative system, transparency of

transactions and access to information and among

other provisions and Republic Act 3019 or the “Anti-

Graft Law” penalizing corrupt practices of officials and

employees (Perante-Calina, 2015).

The strong impetus for bureaucratic reform for

efficient and effective delivery of public services

came from the United Kingdom. The initiative came

from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who introduced

market principles into the public sector, in a process

called privatization in the late 80s. The assumption

was that the state was less effective in service

delivery functions than the private sector. The

rising confidence in the capacity of the market to lead

the development process also led other companies to

advocate the reinventing government proposition in the

early 90s (Dalingwater, 2015).

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 In the Philippine context, “the effectiveness of the

Citizen’s Charter to address red tape can be attributed

to the principles underpinning it”. These include “(1)

Treating service users as clients; (2) Delivering quality

public service; (3) Improving transparency in service

delivery; (4) Treating all fairly; (5) Enhancing client

involvement; (6) Putting things right when they go

wrong; (7) Striving for continuous service

improvement; (8) Providing value for money; (9)

Instilling mutual accountability; (10) Increasing

predictability.”

The culture of graft and corruption was one of the

factors that contributed to a spoil system in Philippine

bureaucracy that restricted the efficiency of government

services and assassinate the neutrality in politics

(Caren, 2012). Despite the presence of law which

criminalized acts of bribery, extortion, abuse of office

and conflict of interest, still, legislative framework is

not adequate to improve service delivery (GAN, 2017). The

2010 Annual Poverty Indicators Survey (APIS) conducted by

the Philippines National Statistics Office in August 2010

revealed that 75 percent of families with at least one

member is supply driven or voluntarily gave the

money, gift or favor in exchange of ease in

transaction, while the other 25 percent were demand-

driven. Less than one percent of those who did not

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voluntarily give pecuniary reported the incident (Hays,

2018). Local Government Units gained the highest

corruption related complaints for seven consecutive

years based on the report released by the ombudsman’s

Finance and Management Information Office (FMIO). A total

of 3,189 complaints was filed against local government

unit officials for the year 2017 followed by 939

complaints against the Philippine National Police (PNP),

310 to the officials of Department of Education,

184 of Department of Environment and Natural

Resources and 117 complaints against officials of

state universities and colleges. All the complaints filed

with the employees of the said agencies were criminal and

administrative in nature (Antiporda, 2018).

Government agencies were described as inefficient,

inaccessible and unresponsive even though they had

higher compensation with less responsibility compared to

private sector. The present administration tried to

stop this dilemma through strengthening the results

accountability in carrying out government programs for

the delivery of effective services. Results-Based

Performance Management System (RBPMS) was one of the

initiatives of the government to unify the systems and

incorporate the metrics on performance excellence in

meeting citizen’s satisfaction and efficient

internal processes. It also determined the

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entitlements of agencies and employees on rewards and

incentives. The Performance-Based Incentive System (PBIS)

is adopted in 2012 to recognize an exemplary

accomplishment of high participating agencies in

achieving their commitments. It increases their

compliance to governance standards including the existing

laws and regulations like the Anti-Red Tape program.

PBIS developed the understanding of government

officials regarding their respective roles and

mandated to bring improvements in the quality of

performance indicators and management practices with good

governance. After all, the public clientele had the

right to demand for quality and prompt service from its

supply side which is the government. Citizen engagement

must exert pressure to those service providers and

control corruption which was considered as a critical

dimension of government reform (Brillantes & Fernandez,

2011). Previously, Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) of 2007

established effective practices that prevented and

penalized graft and corruption practices in the

government. Administrative Order No. 241 dated

October 2, 2008 mandated the speedy implementation of

this act with its implementing rules and regulations. As

a national government agency, Department of Education

(DepEd) disseminated this act through DepEd Memorandum

No. 502 s. 2008 and reiterating its compliance under

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DepEd Order No. 37, s. 2013 that all offices from

national to the school level was directed to have Public

Assistance Desk (PAD) that was accessible and situated at

the most conspicuous area. Citizen’s Charter must be

posted on PAD area that clearly contains the step-by-step

procedure, officer responsible, fees, documents and time

needed to obtain a particular service. Also, compliance

report must be submitted to prove its implementation.

THE ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT UNIT AND OTHER AGENCIES IN

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF EODB LAW

Feraren (2016) and Ramos (2011) stated that local

government units are expected to provide equal treatment

and quality service to the public.

Local Government Unit was made under the Local

Government Code of the Philippines or Republic Act 7160.

The Code established the system and defined powers of

provincial, city, municipal and barangay governments in

the Philippines. It provided a more responsive local

government structure instituted through a system of

decentralization whereby Local Government Units were

delegated more powers, authority, responsibilities and

resources (Philippines, 2020). Considered one of the last

legislations of the administration of Corazon Aquino, it

took almost 5 years just to get it out of Congress. It

was finally signed on October 10, 1991, or 8 months

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before Aquino stepped down from the presidency (Gavilan,

2016).

Local government units endeavored to be self-reliant

and continued exercising the powers and discharging the

duties and functions vested upon them. They also

discharged the functions and responsibilities of national

agencies and offices devolved to them pursuant to Local

Government Code. LGUs likewise exercised such other

powers and discharge such other functions and

responsibilities as were necessary, appropriate, or

incidental to efficient and effective provision of the

basic services and facilities (Philippines, 2020).

Implementation of laws intended to prevent

commission of negative bureaucratic behavior is a

challenge to most government agencies. Ease of Doing

Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of

2018 lessened the perennial problem of bureaucratic red

tape which caused graft and corruption. The study aimed

to determine the degree of observance on the three core

components of ARTA namely citizen’s charter, access to

government service through frontline services, and report

card survey. In addition, zero-contact policy was also

observed which was an amendment to the existing law.

Based on the results, the core components of Republic Act

No. 11032 were always observed in the Department of

Education Division of Nueva Ecija but the presence of

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queuing is observed regardless of the institution’s

effort to eliminate red tapes. The success of policy

implementation can be fully achieved when coupled with a

change of behavior on both part of the service providers

and public clientele. Bureaucratic equity followed by

inculcation of core values by the service providers with

the embodiment of the norms of conduct and ethical

standards contributed in the delivery of an efficient

government service.

Reforms in the bureaucracy did not occur in the

Philippines due to Western efforts done in improving

the bureaucracy and its public services delivery.

Indeed, in the past, it cannot be understated that

the Philippine government had formulated remarkable

bureaucratic reforms. At the local level, there were

several local government units (LGUs) that have

introduced innovations in terms of frontline service

delivery by crafting intervention program. Among the

benefits which the Local Government Unit hopes to derive

are:  reduction of graft and corruption by preventing

personnel’s procrastination and removing the operation of

red tape fixers; availability of feedback, complaints and

redress mechanism which could be used to further improve

the delivery of services; existence of basis for

assessing the performance of the local government

employees, and opening of opportunity for people

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participation on service improvement. As for the clients,

the simplified process of service procedures made their

transactions faster, efficient and more reliable.

Moreover, with the inclusion of clear and transparent

procedures, requirements and fees in the charter, they

expected equal treatment from the LGU officials and/or

employees providing the service (Ramos, 2011).

In the survey conducted in University of the

Philippines on January 2016 it was found out that

majority of frontline service offices were rated ‘good’

by the public. This was an indication that the government

was already reaping the benefits of vigorously

implementing the ARTA and of raising the public’s

consciousness on their rights and responsibilities as

consumers of government services. However, striving for a

better rating instead of merely settling for good should

be done. The Civil Service Commission was set to

continuously work with government agencies so that all

Filipinos can get the quality of service they deserve.

ARTA has paved the way for government offices to start

implementing standards (Feraren, 2016).

COMMENTS:

1. PLS VERIFY: JUSTIFY OR ALIGN LEFT?

2. I DON’T SEE SYNTHESIS AND DISCUSSION OF THE

CONNECTION OF THE REVIEWS AND THE PRESENT STUDY

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