With the continuing pervasiveness of widespread corruption in government, Senator Win Gatchalian is eyeing to pursue policies that mandate the shift to a digital government.
Gatchalian said Friday this would mean accelerating digitization and digitalization efforts in government processes and transactions, including collection of tax payments and other regulatory fees.
“No need to go to government offices to fall in line. The problem starts here,” he said.
“If there is queueing in government transactions, there will surely be fixers, and we already know what will happen if there are fixers,” said Gatchalian.
“All government collections should be paperless or done through electronic means. It’s high time that we push the digital transformation of government services,” he added.
According to Gatchalian, who won a fresh mandate in the Senate, it is also high time to restore the level of trust and confidence of the public to those in government and uphold the dignity of civil servants.
He made the call to address extortion and other corruption charges hounding some alleged erring Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) personnel.
Pending before the Senate is the “Full Digital Transformation Act of 2020” which mandates all government offices, agencies, government-owned and controlled corporations, instrumentalities, and all local government units to adopt a digitalization strategy to facilitate efficient delivery.
This is in accordance with Republic Act No. 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018.
The proposed measure mandates the creation of a Digital Transformation Department within a government agency or office which will provide a system that will allow and promote coordination among various departments or offices.
This would ensure that workflows, responsibilities and accountabilities are properly tracked to allow the transacting public to know the status of their requests at any given time and design service processes and procedures that will promote efficiency and sense of expediency in the government.
“We can be assured of an expeditious and efficient mode of government collections while at the same time the public will be assured of convenience and transparency in their dealings with government agencies.”