Eight government agencies need to revoke or repeal about 17,388 laws and regulations that have become irrelevant and burdensome to eliminate red tape and improve the country’s competitiveness.
The National Competitiveness Council disclosed the number Monday when it launched a move to repeal or amend these outdated measures. NCC was joined by eight participating agencies, including the Trade, Finance, Energy, Budget, Public Works and Tourism Departments, the Securities and Exchange Commission and Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board.
“Right now it’s hard if you look at all the laws, hard to figure out what’s active and what’s inactive. About 2,000 have been repealed but in the Web sites of the agencies or in the roster of active laws people think they are still active. So it’s misleading,” NCC co-chair Bill Luz said during the launch at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati City.
NCC said it would post on its website the laws that have been delisted.
NCC said some 3,959 issuances would initially undergo repeal or amendment, mainly composed of department administrative orders, joint administrative orders, memorandum orders and circulars.
The said issuances represent a fourth of the total 17,500 regulations the eight agencies are reviewing either for repeal, delisting, consolidation or amendment.
Of this number, 1,900 are subject for repeal, while 2,032 previously repealed rules are subject for deletion/delisting from official websites and rosters of regulations and laws.
Another 22 similar issuances are subject for consolidation into one legal document, and five are for amendment or deletion of certain provisions.
Some of the rules submitted to the committee date back to the Commonwealth and Martial Law periods. NCC expects the list to expand as the other agencies and the public continued to submit proposals.
NCC said it planned to engage both the private and public sectors to have twice-a-year ‘Repeal Day’.