Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has ordered officials and employees of the Department of Finance (DOF) and its attached agencies to refrain from conducting meetings and other work-related events in costly private venues, and hold them instead at the Ayuntamiento de Manila, the historic home of the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) in Intramuros, as part of the Duterte administration’s austerity program.
Any work-related meeting of the DOF or any of its attached agencies that would be held in a place other than the Ayuntamiento, “should be justified to me,” said Dominguez.
The Ayuntamiento, also known as the Casa Consistorales, is one of the country’s historic sites, located at the Plaza Roma (beside the Manila Cathedral) in Intramural, Manila.
This building was the venue of several firsts in Philippine history—the first City Hall of Manila, Office of the Spanish Governor General, the first House of Representatives, and the first Supreme Court.
In his directive, which covers “all units of the DOF and attached agencies,” Dominguez said “that in the interest of frugality, when choosing venues for meetings in Metro Manila that will cost the government money, the Ayuntamiento should be the top priority.”
Holding meetings and other work-related functions at the Ayuntamiento is cheaper than organizing them in private venues, which would entail expensive rental fees.
At the Ayumtamiento, only a minimal fee for operating expenses would be charged the DOF and its attached offices when they hold meetings at any of its function halls.
Complying with Dominguez’s directive, the DOF, which hosted the signing of the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of the Microfinance NGOs Act, held the event last Tuesday at the Sala de Sesiones of the Ayuntamiento, Finance Undersecretary Maria Lourdes Recente said.
The Bureau of Customs also held the first of its series of public consultations with stakeholders on the IRR of the Customs and Tariff Modernization Act at the grand Marble Hall of the same historic building last Wednesday, Recente added.
The simple rites marking the turnover of the DOF from former Secretary Cesar Purisima to Secretary Dominguez was also done at the Marble Hall of the Ayuntamiento lastJuly 1. Four former finance secretaries—Cesar Virata, Margarito Teves, Ernest Leung and Jose Pardo—had attended the turnover ceremony.
The Ayuntamiento’s Marble Hall can accommodate as many as 150 to 200 persons, while its Sala de Sesiones can acccommodate 100 persons and its Theater has a 200-seating capacity.
Dominguez’s order to the DOF is in line with President Duterte’s policy of austerity and simplicity, which means that all public officials and employees should abstain from the use of luxury cars, fly in economy class instead of charging the government for business class tickets, and save public funds by foregoing junkets, among other cost-saving measures.
Leading by example, President Duterte has chosen to dress, eat and live simply in Malacañang, and announced that he would not use the presidential yacht, a symbol of official luxury, and would convert it instead into a floating hospital.
The original Ayuntamiento building was destroyed during World War II and reconstruction was started in 2009 to house the offices of the BTr.
The Ayuntamiento’s Marble Hall was where the Congress held its first sessions and where the remains of Dr. Jose Rizal was placed for funeral rites before the eventual transfer to the Rizal Monument in December 1912.
The reconstruction of the historic structure was done by DDT Konstract Inc, which finished the job in 2014 at a cost of P1.2 billion.
The BTr transferred from the Palacio del Gobernador building in Intramuros to the Ayuntamiento in 2010.
