MANILA (UPDATE) - Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman on Wednesday said the Department of Budget and Management will support a proposal to "rightsize" the government for a "lean, efficient, and responsive workforce."

In a statement, Pangandaman said the objective of rightsizing is to create an agile albeit smaller bureaucracy to save funds that could be used for other purposes.

"Ang overarching objective nito [rightsizing] ay magkaroon ng maliit na burukrasya na agile at responsive sa makabagong panahon. Aayusin po ng programang ito ‘yung mga ahensya na mayroong repetitive functions or overlapping functions," the DBM shared Pangandaman's statement in a recent interview.

(The overarching objective of this is to have a small bureaucracy which is agile and responsive fitting for the changing times. We will fix this program, there are agencies that have repetitive functions or overlapping functions)

The proposal for rightsizing would determine which among the 187 government agencies and government-owned-and-controlled corporations (GOCCs) with more or less 2 million personnel, may be streamlined through merging, restructuring or abolition, the new budget chief said.

Pangandaman assured the public that rightsizing could enable the government to save a significant amount of the budget which may be used to fund priority projects such as in building much-needed infrastructure, for social services, programs in the health sector, agriculture, among others.

Affected personnel may apply to positions that will be created as an effect of the rightsizing.

The government will also provide a retooling program for personnel so they may apply in vacant positions. Those who opt to retire will receive appropriate retirement benefits, she added.

Sen. Francis Escudero, who served as Sorsogon governor from 2019 to June 2022, said he also did the same in their provincial government, not just to save money, but to also ensure a faster and more efficient kind of service to the public.

But reducing the volume of employees to its appropriate size must be coupled with the government’s giving of a right compensation program for affected workers, he added.

“It will be a difficult and long process and I am sure that she (Pangandaman) will encounter a lot of resistance but I hope she will stay the course because, in the end, it is, I believe, in the best interest of our country and people," Escudero said.

Sen. Loren Legarda said she also believes in the need to rationalize the government bureaucracy, citing the wastage of too many resources to keep its current state.

“Over the years, the government has grown into a system with the tendency for over-expansion and unnecessary self-perpetuation in several sectors of the society. This resulted in different government agencies having overlapping, duplicative or redundant operations and functions, thus, becoming ineffective and inefficient in the delivery of certain services. Furthermore, the overlapping structure also burdens the government with unnecessary costs,” Legarda pointed out.

However, Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III quickly reminded the DBM to first check the nature of their target agencies’ creation.

“If the agencies, bureaus were created by law, then it must be Congress which should abolish the government entity. And also provide by law for the benefits of the separated employees and the disposal of the assets,” Pimentel said.

The new administration inherited a debt-to-GDP ratio of 63.5 percent, or above the global standard of 60 percent. The economic team needs to generate enough revenues to pay debts which were aggravated by COVID-19 spending.

• Next administration to inherit 'better economy', higher debt: BSP Gov. Diokno
• Philippines' debt-to-GDP ratio balloons to 63.5 percent as of end March

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