Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said the new memorandum of agreement between the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) and the Office of the Ombudsman is a ‘decisive enforcement tool’ to give the Ease of Doing Business law more bite to combat government red tape.
‘This partnership between the ARTA and the Ombudsman will finally speed up the disposal of cases against government actors who violate the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Act,’ said Zubiri, author and sponsor of the EODB law.
Under a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) earlier signed by Arta Secretary Ernesto Perez and Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, the Ombudsman will now give due weight to ARTA’s case files and integrate them into its investigation pipeline, instead of restarting from scratch with a separate preliminary probe.
Zubiri said that this change should translate into faster accountability at permit desks and frontline offices, where long queues often become breeding grounds for petty corruption and lost productivity.
As government watchdogs, Arta is primarily responsible for minimizing bureaucratic red tape to make the government more efficient, while the Ombudsman is responsible for investigating and prosecuting erring government officials.
Before the MOA, the Ombudsman automatically conducts its own preliminary investigation into complaints regarding red tape and ease of doing business that are forwarded to it by Arta.
Zubiri, in a statement, added that aligning investigations ‘will shorten the path from complaint to sanction and send a clear signal that government bottlenecks that choke investment and services will face real consequences.’
‘Until somebody gets imprisoned for violating the EODB Act, red tape and corruption in government continue. So we welcome this move to integrate ARTA’s findings into the Ombudsman’s investigative processes, to speed up the resolution of cases and those who should be imprisoned be imprisoned,’ he said.