Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) Director General Jeremiah Belgica during a Palace briefing on Sept. 24, 2020. (Screenshot from RTVM Facebook page)
MANILA – Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) Director General Jeremiah Belgica has reiterated his call to streamline processes in government transactions and use digital platforms amid the new normal.
At the Palace briefing Thursday, Belgica reminded local government units (LGUs) and national government agencies (NGAs) of President Rodrigo Duterte’s call to eliminate overregulation in government services.
He said with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) pandemic, government offices should do away with procedural mismatch, long queuing, and gathering people resulting in crowded spaces.
Government offices should also discourage vulnerable applicants to do face-to-face transactions, he added.
The ARTA chief also encouraged LGUs and NGAs to use the Philippine National Public Key Infrastructure (PNPKI) electronic signature of the Department of Information and Communications Technology for signing digital documents.
“It is actually safeguarded by a technology that is verifiable,” Belgica said, adding DICT’s e-signature cannot be falsified.
He said the PNPKI technology can trace the origin of the digital signature and also needs a password before the e-signature can be put in a document.
“Covid-19 merely accelerated the need for the use of digital platforms,” Belgica said.
The Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) also passed a resolution to simplify public transactions amid the global health crisis.
Under the general guidelines, government offices should reduce requirements for permits, licenses, and authorizations by retaining necessary procedures and requirements; removing redundant and unduly burdensome processes, procedures, and requirements; adopting processes and procedures, and imposing such requirements that are least costly to the transacting public; and aligning procedures with the National Effort for the Harmonization of Efficient Measures of Inter-related Agencies, or the Program NEHEMIA. (PNA)
