DAVAO CITY—Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said here the Duterte administration is fully committed to advancing a mix of policy reforms, management innovations and the optimal use of information technology for it to stage nothing short of a “cultural revolution” to make government agencies truly responsive to the needs of the people and businesses.

Speaking before the 11th The Asset Philippine Forum, Dominguez said the government will harness new, affordable technologies that will transform state agencies into catalysts for improving the ease of doing business in the Philippines and boosting the inflow of much-needed foreign investments, along with vastly upgrading the quality of frontline services to the people.

These initiatives, he said, are in line with President Duterte’s marching orders to his Cabinet to cut red tape in the bureaucracy and make the entire government more responsive to the needs of the people.

“This is a time for innovation in all spheres. We can commit to you that government will be no less innovative. That will improve the collection of revenues, compliance with the rules and the general ease of doing business—especially with government,” Dominguez said at the forum held at the Marco Polo Hotel Davao.

Along this line, he said the Department of Finance (DOF) has partnered with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to develop an automated business and citizens’ databank portal that will trail blaze e-governance in the country.

“We are looking at nothing less than a cultural revolution sweeping our public agencies, making every bureaucrat an enabler of private initiatives. That cultural revolution in the bureaucracy will in turn drive the rest of the economy towards not only greater transparency but also greater responsiveness,” Dominguez said.

According to Dominguez, this upcoming databank portal, which will involve establishing a single database for verifying business and government records, will reduce processing time for government frontline services and contribute greatly to improving the ease of doing business in the country, which, in turn, will enhance the flow of investments to the Philippine economy and create millions of new jobs.

“In a word, cutting red tape will not only alleviate the plight of our citizens dealing with government. Cutting red tape will enhance inclusive growth in our economy. I suspect that the weak culture of entrepreneurship we often complain about is, at least in part, due to the difficulty in setting up a business. Government agencies behaved as gatekeepers instead of enablers,” he said.

“I am not talking of a distant paradise of governance here. The technology is available. It is cheap. It is already in the hands of our people in the form of smart phones and laptops. If rumor could be so quickly delivered through social media, official documentation may be delivered faster,” Dominguez added.

“The elimination of red tape in just one of many measures we are implementing with the end goal of reducing poverty in a dramatic manner. Reducing red tape enhances business and investment inflows,” Dominguez said

“In turn, businesses and investments will create jobs as well as improve productivity. That will impact on unemployment and therefore poverty,” he added.

Said Dominguez: “We do understand the urgency of dramatically bringing down poverty rates. If we do not achieve high middle-income status in the medium term, the Philippines will miss the train to high-income status in a generation. The demographic sweet spot will pass us and we will become an aging population by 2040. That is the tragedy that awaits failure at this time.”

In his speech, Dominguez cited the generous assistance extended by the German government, through the KfW Group (Kreditanstalt fur Wideraufbau), to the Philippines’ anti-red tape initiative of streamlining the documentary processes, particularly for imports and exports.

“I should take this opportunity to thank the German development bank Kreditanstalt fur Wideraufbau (KfW Group) for the P21.5 million grant given to the DOF to implement an anti-red tape initiative. This initiative would simplify documentary requirements for imports and exports. That grant will go a long way in allowing us better trade facilitation,” he said.

Long before he became President, Mr. Duterte has always been “scandalized” by the way people have had to sacrifice their time and comfort to queue for government services, which, to him, was “symbolic of an arrogant government and a bureaucracy that was insensitive to the people they served.” Dominguez said.

Having observed government from below, Mr. Duterte gave stern marching orders to his Cabinet at the onset of his presidency to “simplify procedures, expedite work in the frontline agencies and make the whole of government more responsive to our people,” Dominguez recalled.

President Duterte also introduced a flurry of reforms just months after assuming office, including the grant of longer validity periods for drivers’ licenses and passports, the setting up of emergency hotlines to report corruption, and a one-stop shop for overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

In step with the President’s anti-red tape drive, Dominguez said he set up at the DOF a task force that would find ways to streamline procedures to better serve taxpayers, such as simplifying tax forms at the Bureau of Internal Revenue and making their offices more client-driven and client-friendly.

Dominguez said that among the more significant initial findings of the task force was that government agencies, in the main, operated as separate units with different procedures and uncoordinated responses to people’s needs.

Acting on these findings, the DOF had teamed up with the DICT to set up a single database for the business and citizens’ registry portal and held its first stakeholders meeting for the business databank last Oct. 26.

“We need a mix of policy reforms, management innovation and increased use of information technologies to make our agencies interoperable,” Dominguez said.

Dominguez said an executive order directing government agencies to more openly share their information would be helpful in expediting the establishment of the citizens and business databank portal.

The finance chief said other anti-red tape initiatives would be rolled out over the next few months and that he expects these government information systems to be fully harmonized and operational “in a year or two.”

Dominguez said the introduction of new communications technologies in Government will require a change in the old habits of the bureaucracy. “That can only be good for our citizens. It will be a driver of inclusive economic growth,” he noted.

“We will not only see vastly less people sleeping in the sidewalks waiting for their turn to be served. We will see an empowered citizenry accessing information from their homes and offices. We will see documentary requirements quickly processed and delivered by courier as we now see in the case of passports,” Dominguez said.

“We will replace with digital technology the old manual movement that wastes time and contributes to traffic congestion in the streets,” he added