DOF starts cleanup, improvements for new admin

MANILA, Philippines - From an inventory of issued regulations to office improvements and renovations, the Department of Finance has embarked on projects meant to clean and improve its own backyard five months before President Aquino steps down.

"I look forward to leaving behind a more coherent organization for my successor to have an easier time leading the Department of Finance," Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said in a statement on Friday.

Policy-wise, Purisima issued Department Order 7, dated January 19, calling for an inventory of all its issuances, including its attached agencies, to weed out inconsistencies and irrelevant ones.

The DOF is the national government's main revenue agency which has supervision over the bureaus of Internal Revenue (BIR), Customs and Treasury. 

The three collectively account for 90 percent of state revenues.

The agency also oversees the Insurance Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bureau of Local Government Finance, Cooperative Development Authority, Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp., Philippine Export-Import Credit Agency, Central Board of Assessment Appeal and the National Task Research Center.

Purisima said a technical working group will oversee the inventory and rationalization of issuances. The entire process should be completed by May 29.

"All issuances that are no longer applicable or have been superseded by subsequent events or regulations or are deemed irrelevant as of this time are to repealed," the order stated.

Administratively, the DOF had also begun renovating parts of its 19-year-old building along Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City.

The sixth floor housing the Office of the Secretary and the Revenue Operations and Legal Group will undertake a face-lift expected to finish in three months. Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said other floors are also being renovated.

"The seventh floor is also being renovated... It's not really related to the change in government. Some of it was a result of delays on procurement," Beltran said in a phone interview.

"It's also more because we generated savings in past years which we could use to do these improvements," he added.

Total project costs were unavailable as of this posting.

Last September, The STAR reported the DOF is in the process of bidding out a P4.5-billion project to construct a new 20-story building targeted to be finished by 2017.

The new building will rise beside the current one and will house the Office of the Secretary as well as those of the commissioners of the BIR and Customs.