Hitting the ground running, the DOF under Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has initiated in the first 100 days of the new government a broad range of initiatives to help flesh out President Duterte’s 10-point socio-economic agenda on achieving inclusive growth and attacking poverty, achieving peace with local insurgents and our neighbors, and easing bureaucratic and regulatory bottlenecks in order to cut red tape and attract investors.

The DOF has implemented far-reaching consultations with local and foreign groups on reforming tax policy and administration to provide relief to wage earners plus other low-income taxpayers while encouraging businesses to pay more taxes, in line with the Duterte administration’s ambitious goal to free 10 million Filipinos from poverty and turn the Philippines into an upper middle-income economy in six years’ time.

So far, the Department has held consultations with members of the Congress, former finance secretaries, eminent economists, health advocacy groups, civil society organizations, media leaders, business chambers and industry associations, and international organizations.

Following such public consultations, the DOF submitted to the Congress last Sept. 26 Package One of this tax reform plan—dubbed the proposed Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act—designed to exempt most Filipinos from paying income taxes and grow the middle class, while still collecting enough revenues from affluent taxpayers and corporations to help fund the President’s 10-point socioeconomic agenda.

Incidentally, the DOF spearheaded the crafting of the President’s 10-point agenda for inclusive growth in partnership with business and civil-society groups at a Sulong Pilipinas forum in Davao City, weeks before Mr. Duterte took over last June 30.

Dominguez has, over the past three months, met with representatives of foreign governments and institutions along with top executives of both international and local business groups to secure their support behind the new government’s socioeconomic agenda.

For starters, Dominguez had initiated talks on, if not secured outright commitments on financial and/or technical support for, priority programs, including those meant to ease Metro Manila congestion, modernize farms, and bring development to the troubled Southern Philippines.

These include the governments of Spain, China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Brunei, France, Australia, and Bangladesh; international institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank; and business groups such as the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines, and Mindanao Business Council.

In these meetings, foreign and local leaders and organizations have all expressed their support for President Duterte and his 10-point socioeconomic agenda, the paramount objective of which is to keep the domestic economy on its high growth path and spread its benefits to all Filipinos.

In keeping with President Duterte’s SONA directive for all government agencies to cut red tape, Dominguez named Undersecretary Gil Beltran as head of a newly-formed anti-red tape committee that would speed up the processing of the public’s official transactions with the Department and its attached agencies as well such as the Bureaus of Customs (BOC) and of Internal Revenue (BIR).

Beltran’s anti-red panel has already teamed up with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on designing an online business and citizen registry that would serve as a one-stop shop for individuals and corporate entities to easily track and validate their records, removing from them the burden of proving legitimacy when securing licenses, permits and other official documents or requirements.

This panel has also started cutting the number of days needed by the public to process official papers at the DOF and its attached agencies.

Over the past 100 days, the DOF has worked with the BOC, BIR, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other department-attached offices in streamlining official transactions in all these agencies for the benefit of the public and private businesses.

It has, among others, started public consultations with the BOC on the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the new Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA).

In order to facilitate imports by the general public, the BOC will implement the higher limits on de minimis importations , which refers to small-value imports worth P10,000 or below that are exempt from tax payments.

The BIR , for its part, also exerted efforts to simplify and facilitate the processing of tax clearances and certificates authorizing registration for real properties and shares of stock, according to BIR officer-in-charge Nestor Valeroso.

Through this initiative, processing time for these documents has been reduced from several weeks to months to only 3 to 5 days.

Streamlined procedures at the BIR were also implemented for the issuance of various clearances, permits and certificates; business registrations; and applications for the tax-exempt status of educational institutions.

The B IR has also reviewed, and if necessary, recalled previous revenue issuances that impose unnecessary burden on taxpayers and/or create opportunities for extortion and corruption, and adopted an expanded compromise settlement program for taxpayers even during the pendency of the assessment process.

The BIR has also strengthened its Run After Tax Evaders Program (RATE) and started implementing programs to expand the tax base, such as taxpayers’ profiling and industry benchmarking, and tax verification drives.

Within the bureau, the BIR has also started cleaning up its ranks by relieving or transferring personnel with unsatisfactory records or collection performance; conducting values formation workshops; creating a Special Disciplinary Committee to investigate erring revenue officers; strengthening its Internal Affairs Service; and upgrading salaries for entry-level positions .

It is also in the process of strengthening and expanding its Large Taxpayers Service; simplifying tax forms for businesses, including medium, small and micro enterprises; widening the coverage of the electronic filing and payment system to include other non-large taxpayers; and providing taxpayers additional options or facilities to pay taxes, including the use of credit/debit/prepaid payment cards and payments centers, among other initiatives to encourage tax compliance.

As for the BOC, the Bureau reached 95.2 percent of its August 2016 collection target at P32.653 billion out of the P34.308 billion assessed target, which is higher by 8 percent compared to collections during the same period last year.

The BOC also intensified its anti-smuggling and border protection efforts, which led to the apprehension of high-caliber firearms and their components, various types of illegal drugs, and food products.

Under Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, the customs bureau either abolished, created or transferred offices to promote transparency and curb corruption. These include, among others, the creation of a Command Center in the Office of the Commissioner, a Special Studies and Project Development Committee, and a CCTV command center.

It has also organized separate consultative meetings to involve stakeholders in the drafting of the IRR of the CMTA and crafted measures to streamline the issuance of permits for efficient trade facilitation.

The BOC also hosted this year’s World Customs Organization Conference and the first train-the-trainers workshop on the Implementation of the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN) Harmonized Tariff Nomenclature.

The DOF has likewise partnered with other departments and institutions on streamlining official processes, such as in sealing with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and both chambers of Congress the IRR on the “Microfinance NGOs Act” law for micro, small and medium-scale enterprises (MSMEs).

Through its Corporate Affairs Group, the DOF is also pushing the swift approval of a bill pending in the Senate that aims to harmonize the Philippine Chattel Mortgage Law and other related statutes on secured transactions and broaden the use of movable assets as collateral for MSME loans.

In partnership with the Governance Commission for GOCCs (GCG), the DOF has initiated a web-based system on the recording and monitoring of data on the debt and liabilities of state-run firms to aid in the analysis of their debt and better manage government financial exposure.

The Insurance Commission (IC) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Department of Health (DOH) for the development of health microinsurance products that will complement the existing program of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).

Affordable microhealth insurance products approved by the IC are now being offered by insurance providers.

The IC has also collaborated with the DOF, Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation (PCIC), Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Climate Change Commission (CCC), the Department of Agriculture (DA)’s Agricultural Training Institute and Philippine Atmospheric Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) to find ways to fully operationalize the Framework on Agriculture Microinsurance, which aims to provide aid to farmers and fisherfolk, particularly in times of disasters.

As part of heightened efforts to raise enough revenues for Malacañang’s accelerated spending on infrastructure, human capital and social protection for vulnerable sectors, the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) last month auctioned off retail treasury bonds—the first offer of such RTBs to small investors on the Duterte watch—and netting an impressive P100 billion from the week-long sale.

That this BTr auction was oversubscribed—getting offers four times more than the initial tender—is testament to high investor confidence in the Duterte presidency.

With regards to the DOF’s privatization thrusts, its Privatization Management Office (PMO) has thus far generated P50.7 million from the sale of various parcels of land located in the cities of Davao, Tagum and Paranaque, and in San Miguel, Manila; from the leases of properties formerly owned or held by the Cultural Center of the Philippines, Elorde Sports and Tourism Development Corp., National Housing Authority, Reparations Commission and Philippine Development Alternatives Foundation; and other collectibles.

As part of the government’s Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program, the DOF and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board approved the construction of the P23.2 billion-worth North Luzon Expressway (NLE X )–South Luzon Expressway (SLE X ) Connector Road Project, an unsolicited proposal of the Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (MPIC).
A notice of award from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) was issued then to the Metro Pacific Tollways Development Corp. (MPTDC) and its subsidiary Manila North Tollways Corporation (MNTC) last Sept. 26.

This project is seen to decongest traffic in Metro Manila by providing an alternative to C-5 Road, Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), and other major thoroughfares. Moreover, it is expected to cut the travel time between NLE X and SLE X from more than one hour to about 20 minutes.

The DOF has also undertaken efforts to streamline decision making at NEDA by increasing the minimum value of projects for approval to P5 Billion and working on reducing the number of members in order to make decisions expeditiously.

In pursuit of the President’s anti-corruption agenda, Dominguez has also ordered the BIR and BOC to intensify efforts to f lush out corrupt officials.

In particular, BIR Commissioner Caesar Dulay has directed the continuous investigation of pending administrative cases against erring officials and ha s recommended the termination of those found guilty after due notice and hearing.

The finance secretary has also directed concerned department officials to investigate irregularities allegedly committed by fugitive Laoag City Treasurer Elena Asuncion and swiftly implement the orders issued by the Office of the Ombudsman suspending Customs Officer IV Jerry Gomez Ponce and forfeiting the retirement benefits of municipal treasurer Cipriano Plazos of of Katipunan, Zamboanga del Norte who were separately found to be liable for various administrative offenses.

Dominguez has likewise initiated moves that led to a reversal of the previous Aquino administration’s decision to merge the Landbank of the Philippines (LandBank) and the Development of the Philippines (DBP).

In a meeting with retired Maj. Gen. John Gomes, the Bangladesh ambassador to Manila, Dominguez had assured the Bangladesh government of the Duterte administration’s all- out support for Bangladesh’s recovery of its dollar deposit that were stolen by cyber hackers from its US Federal Reserve Bank of New York account.

Weeks after that meeting, Gomes thanked Dominguez along with other government officials following a swift Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) order on the return to the Bangladesh government of $15 million of the stolen money that had been surrendered by casino junket operator Kim Wong.