Focus on frontline services

The best way of winning back public confidence is to jail the porkers, the sooner the better. But we have our legal process to live with and by the Ombudsman’s own calculation it could be a year before they are able to file that Napoles case before the Sandiganbayan.

If you are a president eager to win back lost political capital, the next best thing to do is to focus on drastically improving government’s frontline services. This strategy is a good way of showing the people in a very visible and very tangible way back in 2010 that the P-Noy administration was really change for the better.

Some agencies of government did something in this regard. Then Foreign Secretary Bert Romulo intensified efforts to make the delivery of passports easier. The procedure was streamlined at the central office and they somehow managed to get rid of the usual long line of applicants.

Then, DFA did something even better. They started opening satellite offices all over the country and having outreach days when they take and process passport applications in city halls and big private offices. Their best innovation is to offer passport services in shopping malls. The malls, after all, are the village town squares today.

Now I am getting good reviews of how DFA is able to process applications in malls in less than an hour. This is important and valuable to a country whose main business is to send its citizens abroad to earn a living.

Also to be commended for using the mall strategy is the LTO. I have been able to renew my driver’s license at the LTO Megamall office in less than an hour. No more fixers. No more fuss. There is a senior citizen’s lane to speed things up even more.

The NBI had long used the malls as a venue to accept applications for clearances. But somehow, they have not been able to fix their computer system or their internal processing system enough to make the experience pleasant. They have to do more to eliminate the long lines. They have to learn how to accept and process applications on line.

Getting birth and marriage certificates has also become somewhat civilized lately. There is a phone number that can be called and after a wait of at most two weeks, the certificate is delivered to your house. Of course there is a fee involved, but not as much as the cost of your time and aggravation in the old system.

Still and all, even for DFA, it is still work in progress. When I posted a status update about these worthwhile improvements in frontline services, I got a number of comments from my Facebook friends about contrary experiences.

From Dr. Ricky Soler – “I feel bad for the guy. He is having his passport renewed through a travel agency… he still had to go through the rigors of getting an NBI clearance. It took him two visits to succeed in doing this due to the long lines at the NBI main office.

“After this, the agency advised him he had to go through a personal ‘appearance’ at the DFA. This is scheduled for Oct. 17th! Something is terribly wrong here. A month to renew a passport? It seems it’s easier to get a new passport in a mall than to renew one.”

From Vicki Saguin-Linao: “Hi, Sir Boo. FYI, here in Cebu, DFA’s service has gone from bad to worse. People line up outside a mall in Mandaue City (not even in Cebu City) as early as 12 a.m. just to get a priority. Then patiently wait for the priority numbers to be distributed at around 6 a.m.

“Mall opens 9.30 a.m. Most people get their business done by 12noon. That’s about 12 hours of agony just to renew or apply for a passport. It used to be easier, faster and more accessible before they transferred to a mall. Cebuanos dread renewing their passports.”

I am not sure if these negative experiences are aberrations or more widespread. Maybe they need to open another passport office in Cebu City itself given the volume of applicants. It would do well for DFA to look into these cases and continually improve their processes to render great public service.

Then there is the SSS. This agency was in the front pages of the newspapers lately for the wrong reason. The agency head and board of directors voted themselves very generous “performance” bonuses. Worse, they justified the largesse as if the members owed it to them.

The SSS CEO and seven other members of the SSS board got at least P1 million each as bonuses for “good performance” last year. That’s an estimated P10 million for the eight board members and P276 million for SSS employees.

I don’t think this generous bonus would have become as controversial if only SSS rendered better service to its members. I have been hearing complaints about how difficult it is to deal with SSS in their attempts to comply with the Kasambahay law. COA also recently chided SSS for delays in processing of member claims.

My Facebook friend, Raul J. de Vera Jr., has this comment in reaction to my good review of DFA’s passport efforts: “I hope SSS does the same. It’s taking 2~3 months to get an SSS ID. It is the only identification card accepted by the Taiwan de-facto embassy (TECO) in order to provide visas to our OFWs.”

Another Facebook friend, Noy Dy-Liacco, has this comment: “MillionBonusPeople. Plus P40,000 per member per Board Meeting. Two meetings a month. Do the math.

“Meanwhile, the service level at the branches sucks. I challenge the members of its Board to go to any branch incognito and attempt to make a transaction. Start with applying for memberships for their kasambahays. Been there, done that. SSS sucks. Big time.”

Indeed, the SSS bureaucracy looks very unworthy of that generous bonus with the low service level they are giving. The long lines at the head office cannot be a secret to SSS officials. There is also bad timing because SSS members face a mandatory increase in contributions next January.  

Then there is this column of economist and former NEDA chief Ciel Habito early this week about personal experiences with corruption at the grassroots level. Ciel related three: at a local government unit, on the road with a supposedly pollution check of vehicles and at the Immigration line at NAIA.

Ciel can rightfully express skepticism about P-Noy’s Daang Matuwid based on these personal experiences. The cases reported by Ciel make us shake our heads and curse the petty corruption of bureaucrats when they interact with people they are supposed to serve. There should be someone in Malacanang tracking down these complaints and doing something to delight a harassed citizenry.

There is still so much more government can do to make citizens smile and be proud of their government. P-Noy might say that dealing with petty corruption is very much below his pay grade. But then again, petty corruption makes citizens lose faith in our leaders.

Maybe dealing with corruption at Customs is a properly big thing for a president to give personal attention to. But even here, P-Noy has nothing to show. They can blame the TRO from a lower court judge that prevents them from doing something, but in the end P-Noy will still be seen as not doing enough.

I have often suggested that while the administration is trying to get its act together on frontline services, they should minimize the need for citizens to be in contact with bureaucrats.

Do we really need an NBI or police clearance to get a passport? Shouldn’t passports be valid for 10 rather than five years as it is with many countries including the US?

Why should we register our cars every year? Every three or five years should be enough. Testing for smoke emission on registration is a sham anyway. Just catch the polluters in the streets.

Driver’s licenses? Have them valid for five or 10 years rather than three. The fees can be adjusted to cover longer validity if the bureaucrats are worried about losing income. But even here, fees earned in this manner should be secondary to the service rendered.

The quality of government services given by front line agencies has a major impact on business growth. More importantly, it contributes to citizen confidence or the lack of it in their government. Nothing beats first hand experience.

DAP

From the Professional Heckler:

What does DAP – an acronym we first heard from Budget Secretary Butch Abad stand for?

A: Deodorized Allocation for Pals

B: Demonyo Ang Pork

C: Disbursement Approved by the President

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco