The Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) on Monday observed its fifth year with renewed focus on expanding its coverage, modernizing its operations and forging partnerships with both the private and public sectors.
The anniversary celebration held at the Manila Hotel also marked the enactment of Republic Act No. 11032 entitled Ease of Doing Business (EODB) that gave rise to the ARTA.
The theme of the event was “The ARTA @5: Streamlining the Philippines for Effective and Efficient Digitalization (S.P.E.E.D.).” Highlighting ARTA’s efforts to streamline and digitalize government processes and procedures, the celebration also reiterates the Authority’s commitment to promoting ease of doing business in the country.
Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin read the keynote message on behalf of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. who expressed tremendous support to ARTA’s work and reiterated his administration’s commitment to improving bureaucratic efficiency.
ARTA Secretary Ernesto Perez also delivered a comprehensive speech tagged ‘2023 State of the ARTA Address, citing the Authority’s progress in streamlining and digitalizing bureaucracy in the country.
Perez also talked about ARTA’s accomplishments over the past five years, including the reduction of the average processing time in government transactions, reducing the number of regulatory requirements, and the increase of government agencies achieving full compliance with the EODB Law.
Perez unwrapped ARTA’s future plans, which include expanding its reach to all regions of the country, increasing its focus on digitalization, and strengthening its partnerships with the private sector and other government agencies in coherence with President Marcos’ directives to improve bureaucratic efficiency in the country.
Highlighting the event was the ‘ARISE Award’ described as an overarching award for all national government agencies (NGAs) and local government units (LGUs) recognizing their efforts in pursuit of achieving full compliance with the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Law.
The categories of ARISE Awards are based on different ARTA Compliances, namely, Compliance with the Electronic Business One Stop Shop for LGUs or Digitalization of Services Award for NGAs, Adherence to the Philippine Good Regulatory Principles Rewards and Recognition Program, Accomplishment in the Report Card Survey 2.0, and upcoming Philippine Ease of Doing Business Reporting System.
The event closed with ARTA’s continuing commitment to combat red tape and corruption and to fast-track all government regulations, processes, and procedures to improve Philippine bureaucracy and economic recovery.
In addition to its work on streamlining government processes, ARTA is also working to further strengthen the promotion of digitalization and inter-agency collaboration, as ARTA believes that these are essential to improving bureaucracy in the country and the transacting public’s experience with government programs and services.
ARTA remained confident that by working together with the private sector and other government agencies under the whole-of-government approach, it will accelerate the implementation of reforms and make a significant difference in improving the ease of doing business in the Philippines.
Other prominent guests at the affair included Secretary Ivan John Uy of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Secretary Jaime Bautista of the Department of Transportation (DOTr), Jose Arnulfo Veloso, President and General Manager of the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Dr. Samuel Zacate, Director General of Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Peter Wallace, Private Sector Representative of the Ease of
Doing Business and Anti-Red Tape Advisory Council, Ambassador of the Australian Embassy in the Philippines H.E. Hae Kyong Yu, Ambassador of the British Embassy in Manila H.E. Laure Beaufils, Ambassador of the Embassy of Israel in the Philippines H.E. Ilan Fluss, and Ambassador of the Embassy of Singapore in Manila H.E. Gerard Ho Wei Hong.