Deputy Speaker LRay Villafuerte is batting for the speedy approval of a congressional measure establishing a contactless, electronic-based system of services in all government offices and state-run corporations to put flesh into President Duterte’s pitch in his latest State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) to do away with paper-based official transactions and physical queueing in government offices in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Villafuerte said the approval of his proposed legislation is in response to the new norm of physical distancing and the use of non-paper transactions as part of the health and safety protocols to curb the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and is also attuned to government efforts to further improve the ease of doing business (EODB) in the country.
“A fully functioning e-government system will flesh out President Duterte’s goal of shifting frontline government services online, while providing the public the convenience of transacting from their homes and expecting services to be delivered as quick as possible,” said Villafuerte, the primary author of House Bill (HB) No. 1248 or the proposed E-Government Act.
“With e-government, Filipinos will be able to do business with government agencies in the comfort of their homes and without having to go to the offices themselves, at this time when social or physical distancing is the new norm,” Villafuerte said. “Contactless transactions in government will also do away with red tape and minimize official corruption.”
The Camarines Sur representative has been a staunch advocate of digital transformation in the Congress even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With e-government, Filipinos will be able to do business with government agencies in the comfort of their homes.”
Villafuerte issued this statement after President Rodrigo Duterte said in his 5th SONA that “the national government shall lead the way in our transition to online systems. I reiterate my call for all government instrumentalities to implement systems that shall make physical queuing a thing of the past.”
“We need e-governance (to provide) our people with the services they need (from) the comfort of their homes or workplaces. It will enable our bureaucracy to better transition into the ‘new normal’ and cut or minimize red tape,” Duterte said.
HB 1248 was approved by the House committee on information and communications technology (ICT) and substituted with HB 6927 before the sine die adjournment of the Congress last month.
Sen. Bong Go has filed a counterpart bill in the Senate when Congress resumed session on July 27.
Villafuerte said the full switch to e-government will dramatically improve the ease of doing business in the country as mandated under the Ease of Doing Business (EODB) Act, which he authored in the House.
The full implementation of the EODB law will go a long way, he said, in improving the Philippines’ ranking in the World Bank’s Doing Business ranking, which fell from 113th in the 2018 to 124thin 2o19.
Villafuerte said HB 6927 proposes the “technical and informational interoperability of the ICT systems of all government offices through the internet-based E-Government System, to clear the way to the further improvement of the ease of doing business in the country and minimize corruption while at the same time making the Philippines ahead of the curve in the practice of social distancing under the new normal scenario of possible coronavirus outbreaks in the years to come.”
Villafuerte and Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano are among the lead authors of HB 6864 or the Better Normal for the Workplace, Communities and Public Spaces Act, which was approved on second reading before the Congress adjourned sine die last month.
“Contactless transactions in government will also do away with red tape and minimize official corruption.”
HB 6864 provides for, among others, the fast-track implementation of the National Identification (ID) Project as well as the National Broadband Plan (NBP) of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
Villafuerte is also the author of HB 1297 or the ‘Bangko sa Baryo Act,” in support of President Duterte’s policy on financial inclusion. The House also approved this measure on second reading before the sine die adjournment.
HB 1297 seeks to empower chosen “authorized cash agents” (ACAs) to assist in performing a broad range of bank services, including forwarding account opening applications, cash-in and cash-out services, and initial customer identity verification, in remote barangays without banks.
Villafuerte said the bill will help the government speed up the release of future social amelioration program (SAP) subsidies, if any, to poor households in far-flung communities.
Villafuerte has appealed to the Senate to put on its priority list its counterpart measures to HB 6927, HB 6864 and HB 1297, which aims to authorize cash agents to help serve the banking needs of people in faraway villages without banks.
These three measures, he said, would equip Filipinos to live their lives safely over the next year at the least, when a vaccine or cure for COVID-19 is not expected to be developed yet for commercial production and sale.
Aside from prescribing the obligatory health and safety protocols like social distancing, frequent hand-washing and use of facial masks in public to avoid COVID-19 infection, Villafuerte said that HB 6864 will clear the way to the speedy migration of the economy to digitalization, which has become indispensable in the face of the unprecedented global health crisis.
The deputy speaker said the approval by both legislative chambers of HB 6864 would let Filipinos live their lives safely as this substitute bill incorporates other initiatives necessary in this season of the pandemic, including the National ID System and the DICT’s NBP.
He said that once approved by both chambers of the Congress, “this measure will help President Duterte realize his goal of financial inclusion and improve the speed and efficiency of delivering social mitigation interventions, such as cash grants, to those who need them the most in times of crisis and calamities.”
The deputy speaker for finance said HB 1297, HB 6927 and the implementation of RA 11055 or the National ID Project, which Villafuerte also co-authored, form part of a reform package designed to let the Duterte administration upgrade the delivery of its future social amelioration programs (SAPs)—and avoid a repeat of the hitches that had mired the initial release of cash subsidies to 18 million poor and low-income families hardest hit by the pandemic.
Villafuerte was also the lead proponent in the House of Republic Act (RA) No. 11469 or the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act, which gave President Duterte special powers to deal with the COVID-19 crisis over the March-June 2020 period, and co-chairman of the social amelioration cluster of the Defeat COVID-19 Ad Hoc Committee (DCC) chaired by Cayetano.