The Department of Finance (DOF) has secured a P21.5 million grant from the German development bank Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (​KfW​)​ Group to implement an anti-red tape initiative that would simplify processes in securing documentary requirements for imports and exports, along with harmonizing these systems as part of the Duterte administration’s efforts to ease the way of doing business ​in the Philippines ​and facilitate ​its integration into the regional community of Southeast Asian economies.

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said the grant from the Frankfurt-based KfW Group will help implement the Inter-Agency Business Process Interoperability (IABPI) Program, which aims to streamline the process of issuing permits for imports and exports from ​the current ​two weeks to a maximum of only three days, in compliance with President Duterte’s directive to cut red tape in all government offices.

​In ​a separate report submitted to Dominguez by Undersecretary Gil Beltran, the project will not only improve the deliver of this frontline government service, but would also contribute to the increase in revenues, facilitate regional trade links and the entry or expansion of businesses in the Philippines.

​President Duterte, in his speech after being sworn into office last June 30, directed “all department secretaries and the heads of agencies to reduce requirements and the processing time of all applications from the submission to release.”

The IABPI will be implemented by the DOF’s Policy Development and Management Services Group in coordination with the government’s trade regulatory agencies, according to Beltran​, who was recently named by Dominguez to be the DOF’s anti-red tape czar.

Besides simplifying import-export documentation processes, the program’s targets include developing policies to “oversee, manage and harmonize transactions of all regulatory agencies” involved in these processes by establishing protocols to link their information with each other.

Thus, making the agencies a member of a collaborative group that will be able to exchange information with one another and become interoperable.

According to Beltran, “The major cause of red-tape in government is that agencies act and operate in isolation of each other”.

The Department of Finance through the IABPI Project is leading the way for interoperability in the whole of government.

(Government interoperability is the mix of policy, management, and technology capabilities needed by a network of agencies to deliver coordinated government programs and services.)

The program also aims to enforce “transparent and accountable regulation processes and procedures [in] all relevant government agencies” and ensure that these would be sustained.

On top of this initiative, the DOF is also working together with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to develop the government’s automated business and citizen data bank portal that would serve as the primary tools in cutting red tape and reducing processing time for government frontline services providing a portal to verify business and citizen government records.

Beltran said the DOF and the DICT are now identifying the data to be gathered from various government agencies for the automated business and citizen databank portal.

The first stakeholders meeting for the Business Databank was held last Oct. 26 and where the pilot platform was presented.

​In appointing Beltran as anti-red tape czar, ​Dominguez had said he is envisioning a system comparable to the one used by the online buying portal Amazon.com, which can process millions of purchases from clients by requiring just a one-time registration of pertinent data that can then be validated and used for all transactions.

“Our IT (information technology) people are working closely with revenue people to make things like that as simple as possible. If Amazon can do that, I don’t know how many millions of customers; I think we can certainly do something like that,” Dominguez said.

​Beltran said that the government agencies where the data would be collected for the Business Databank include Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations (GOCCs), the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Office of the City Treasurer of every local government units (LGUs).

While the Citizen records will include the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Social Security System (SSS), Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), Philippine Health Corp. (PhilHealth), Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund), the BIR and the Office of the City Treasurer of every LGUs, Beltran added.

Beltran said pertinent data usually required from applicants who want to secure licenses, permits and other official documents would be culled from these agencies so that they could be linked and shared in the databank.

He said the portal will serve as a one-stop shop for government agencies and corporate entities to easily track and validate their records (as permitted by Philippine law), removing from the businesses and citizens the burden of proving legitimacy.

A nationwide information campaign would be conducted before the registries become fully operational to educate the government agencies involved and the users as well on how to use the automated systems.

A minimal fee would be charged for the use of the portal when this becomes available to the public, he added.

The data sharing in the registries would help streamline frontline government services by doing away with the repetitious process of applicants having to fill up numerous forms and submitting to different agencies the same official papers, which, in the first place, are already in the government database, Beltran said.

Beltran said the Business Registry and the Citizens Databank portal, which will be primarily developed by the DICT, is a lasting solution to the perennial problem of red tape in all government offices.

The Philippine Business Databank would be a database of all operating businesses, non-government organizations and cooperatives in the Philippines, while the Citizen’s Information Databank would provide the government with a comprehensive record of all Filipinos under file in the system.