DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Secretary Leonor Briones of the Department of Education (DepEd) said the Duterte administration is the most supervised bureaucracy yet, in her speech at the opening ceremonies of the 2018 Public Sector HR Symposium at SMX, SM Lanang today.
“I have observed and studied many administrations and perhaps this administration, this bureaucracy is perhaps the most monitored of all,” Briones said in front of about 2, 500 civil servants, guests and speakers.
Bench marking from the symposium’s theme, Achieving Breakthrough Results through Strategic HR, the DepEd secretary summarized the administration’s view on civil service, in behalf of President Rodrigo Duterte.
“Under the Duterte Administration, as I was saying, the president has perhaps two or three expectations of civil servants. One, is they have to deliver,” Briones stated.
Conventional monitoring measures in the bureaucracy include the regular ranking of the Department of Budget and Management on agency spending and the follow-up supervision of the Office of the Cabinet Secretary on the actualization of these funded projects.
However, Briones noted that the administration’s commitment to eradicating corruption in the government has resulted to greater pressure amongst civil servants to realize their promises to the public.
“This was exemplified in President Duterte’s recent warning to his cabinet officials after the Commission on Audit released their report,” she added.
The 8888 public concerns hotline is an example of another monitoring system, which empowers the citizens to raise their concerns to the involved agency for urgent responses.
Furthermore, executive secretaries as Briones revealed, are tasked to religiously report developments on their departments quarterly and monthly.
“A requirement of an executive secretary is to monitor official travels as well as personal travels,” Briones cited as she jokingly said how this task was made easier due to the people’s tendency to post everything on Facebook.
Before pondering on the recent administration’s initiatives, Secretary Briones spoke of the history of the bureaucracy under previous presidents.
“The objective always of reorganization is to trim the fat of the bureaucracy, the result is always the fattening of the bureaucracy and the creation of more positions, ” she emphasized as she talked about mass dismissals of civil servants after an administration ends.
Although many reforms, technological advancements, and international partnerships have pushed forth improvements in the government’s public service, Briones urged the crowd to not forget worrisome developments emphasized in media.
“Together with these wonderful positive things happening, you also have exposés, reports by investigative journalists on abuse of political economic power prowling attention to the defects of our political systems, shenanigans of personalities and also problems on our economy”.(davaotoday.com)
