As Trump 2.0 begins, we can take a page from his plan to make the American government more efficient.
We don’t need to get someone like Elon Musk to spearhead it but we can learn from it and apply it to our own bureaucracy, which definitely needs a lot of fixing.
There’s just too many cobwebs that make it difficult for ordinary citizens to avail themselves of needed government services. These cobwebs also make the bureaucracy prone to corruption.
Efficiency
Thus, we need to make our bureaucracy more efficient. This way, government agencies can function better.
For instance, if state-owned health insurer PhilHealth had been more efficient in fulfilling its mandate – from paying its obligations to hospitals on time and improving its benefits to members – it would not have billions in idle funds, of which P60 billion ended up being impounded by the government, no thanks to its inefficiency.
Let the 2025 budget mess serve as a lesson for government agencies. Now we know that the our lawmakers and our fiscal authorities are on the lookout for idle funds they can dip their hands into, partly for money-making ventures; campaign funds, perhaps, ahead of the 2025 and 2028 elections or kitty for continued political patronage to keep themselves in power.
What does this mean for government agencies and government-owned corporations? This means that if you don’t use your funds well, you might as well say goodbye to your agency’s money.
Lawmakers and our fiscal authorities are on a purge of sorts, looking for funds they can impound.
This is what happened to state-owned deposit insurer Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. A portion of its Deposit Insurance Fund – P107.23 billion – has been reallocated to the Treasury.
An efficient government agency is one that is able to fulfill its functions and mandate with the resources allotted for it by the government; it can likewise do its own fund-raising if necessary.
Overpriced projects
Aside from an efficient bureaucracy, we also need fiscal discipline.
Department heads and heads of other government agencies can’t just treat taxpayers’ money as if it were their own.
Spending on overpriced campaigns, ugly logos, slogans, giveaways, Christmas parties, etc., is a disservice to the nation.
While these expenses or projects are allowed, spending so much more than the actual cost is corruption. Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto has shown us that government projects can be built at cost, meaning no overpricing, no corruption.
As it is now, however, what is happening is that heads of government agencies, sometimes in cahoots with lawmakers, spend taxpayers’ money recklessly.
They don’t have fiscal discipline and no conscience can stop them. Their priority is making kickbacks.
A reader, Alex Serrano, shared the same observation, noting that the Marcos administration, it seems, has been throwing fiscal discipline out the window.
This shouldn’t be the case, he said, especially because our economy is still struggling.
It’s also time to revisit plans to reduce the number of government agencies and government-owned and -controlled corporations.
There are just too many useless offices with redundant functions. For instance, there are quite a number of housing agencies and yet, our housing problem just keeps getting worse. There are also a lot of lending or guarantee agencies that have similar functions to that of the Development Bank of the Philippines and the Land Bank of the Philippines.
As I said, we can certainly learn from Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Of course, we have yet to see if he will succeed, but at least in the US, they’re actually making it happen.
According to The New York Times, Musk and his group of “Silicon Valley-inflected, wide-eyed recruits will be deployed to Washington’s alphabet soup of agencies. The goal is for most major agencies to eventually have two DOGE representatives as they seek to cut costs, like Mr. Musk did at X, his social media platform.”
These executives will see how the US government works and perhaps see how operations can be improved. For instance, what functions can be removed, what redundancies can be addressed and other areas for improvement.
We need to do something like this as well. Enter a typical frontline government office, and you will most likely see a sea of government employees behind their desks and yet, the office is still inefficient in rendering service to the public. You’re lucky if someone attends to your needs.
In the case of Musk’s DOGE, Musk initially said the effort could result in “at least $2 trillion” in cuts from the $6.75-trillion federal budget.
I’m sure that if we seriously study our bureaucracy, there are ways to cut costs by making it more efficient but without sacrificing service to the public.
This would also make the bureaucracy less prone to corruption.
Privatization
Some government functions may also be privatized. I dare say, for example, some functions of the Bureau of Customs or the whole agency altogether, but that, of course, is a discussion I’ll save for another column.
For now, we must heed the lessons from the 2025 budget mess by making the government more efficient. Hopefully, this would translate to much-needed savings which our government can then reallocate for social services such as health care and education.
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Email: eyesgonzales@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.