A productivity-based counter culture against corruption
We are witnessing the worst in the brazen but well-organized flood control thievery of public funds. The government, through the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), has not been wanting in setting elaborate control procedures to streamline financial operations in various government offices. Unfortunately, corrupt elements, in collusion, find ingenious ways to circumvent and override them.
The values we were taught early at home and at school pale against those skilled at systemic corruption. A good many who chose to work in government are decent, and their families need them to keep their jobs and continue to be good and honest public servants. Unfortunately, some offenders with political clout easily escape prosecution; with their loot, they can hire wily ambulance-chaser lawyers to defend them. With all this, the government should think of a counterculture to fight bureaucratic corruption. In fact, we do have a landmark government program that promotes and rewards group productivity, but which has been suspended by President Marcos.
For a background: Administrative Order No. 25 dated 2011 was an initiative under the auspices of the DBM to promote productivity in the Executive branch; this was later expanded to cover all government employees under Executive Order No. 80 signed in 2012.
AO 25 headlines this preamble: “WHEREAS, toward this end, a collaborative mechanism must be developed among these oversight agencies that will establish a unified and integrated Results-Based Performance Management System (RBPMS) across all departments and agencies within the Executive branch of government incorporating a common set performance scorecard, and at the same time, creating an accurate, accessible, and up-to-date government-wide, sectoral, and organizational performance information system.”
Later, EO 80 created the Consolidated Performance-based Incentives System (PBIS) that covered all government workers and institutions. Under the program, an ordinary government employee belonging to an office that achieves an outstanding group performance rating could earn as much as P50,000 total productivity rewards a year, aside from his/her salary. Establishing this productivity counterculture is our best weapon against embedded corruption in the government bureaucracy because it rewards public servants working together to serve the country honestly and well.
The program, however, suffered from defective implementation over the years. Some offices did not receive their bonuses on time because the required performance rating reports which are the basis for the rewards were not submitted to the DBM; this was the case for the public-school teachers, led by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, who marched in the street in 2023, complaining that they had not received their bonuses, two years in a row, 2021 and 2022. Furthermore, it was also known that some government offices, despite poor public service performance, got away with submitting fudged ratings and received their rewards. As a result of this innuendo, the President in mid-2024 suspended the well-thought-out and well-researched landmark initiative on the group productivity program for government workers.
If we want to have a strong weapon against pervasive graft practices, we need a counterculture that rewards good governance. The President should consider restoring the PBIS program soon. There was nothing basically wrong with the program. The DBM failed in its oversight. This time the program should be placed under the auspices of the Civil Service Commission, where performance evaluations can be impartial and credible, and out of reach of political manipulation.
MARVEL K. TAN, CPA,
captbeloytan@gmail.com
