PHGovNotes

Solutions to help create a transparent government system in the Philippines through the use of technology

So in order to probably begin discussing this subject, we've to scope how we contextualize corruption. Let's talk about political corruption, where are the inefficiencies? What can be done to reduce corruption by streamlining processes, reducing cost and improving accountability and transparency.

The intent of this document is to theoretically re-think what processes within the government system that can be streamlined by first presenting where there are potential inefficiencies are and where we may further improve:

1. Personal Information - Storage and Protection
   
2. Tax
   
3. Reconciliation and Audit
   
4. Presentation of New Laws and Rules
   
5. Government Transactions
   

So now we can start:

My hypothesis is:

A simplification of government processes, openness of data sharing between agencies and transparency in the democratic process can lead to a government system that is cheaper to run and more accountable.

Where are the trouble spots:

1) Personal Information - Storage and Protection

Our relationship with our government begins at birth, the moment we are born, we are tagged with a Certificate of Live Birth from the NSO. This document carries on when you need to get a Passport, Visa, Driver's License, Voter's Permit, Social Security, Marriage Certificate, and yes, even a Death Certificate.

These records could not be edited but takes at least two to three days to retrieve from any government office. It also costs anywhere from the range of 200 to 2000 pesos just to be able to get a copy (vast generalization, NSO costs only 120, but the registration is a different cost all together), and the record is barely ever used again after it has been retrieved once.

Solution: App on top of Amazon Glacier allows you to store data at the cost of $.001 per Gigabyte per month. That's a full $1 a lifetime assuming you live up to 100 years. Cost of operating excluded but it sure beats a paper record that can burn to the ground. Like this: (http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/16827/news/nation/fire-hits-national-statistics-office-records-not-saved) or (http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/34064/news/nation/evidence-in-graft-fraud-cases-lost-in-comelec-fire)

2) Tax

There are multitudes and platitudes of taxes, there are sales tax, property taxes, income tax, if you own stock or if you're part of a cooperative, when you ship a product on the docks or try to take your goods out of the country. Tax when you open up a new business, when you close a business, when you there are fixed taxes in the form of permits, fines, fees, dues. My friends and I often joke that a fine is tax when you do bad, a tax is a fine when you do good. After all, when you make money either through sales, work or your property, you're taxed.

The funny thing is that sometimes the auditor is not as friendly, and the complicated business of tax is ever becoming cumbersome. You get taxed differently on your income when you're single, married, with child or dependents. You get VAT depending on the type of item you purchase.

Entrepreneurs too are often baffled with all the fees that they'd have to pay. (http://www.punongbayan-araullo.com/pnawebsite/pnahome.nsf/section_docs/TF196K_7-9-10), (http://thebobbery.com/bir-chief-kim-jacinto-henares-again-aims-at-online-commerce-platforms-still-doesnt-understand-how-internet-works/)

Truth be told, just as there buckets of different taxes, there are equally different solutions:

1. Clarity in requirements - Most of the time, the problem arises when there's confusion. Rules should be published online and questions may be answered via call-centers (instead of the long ques in government offices)
   

2. Online or Mobile payments - Payments maybe made online, yes, the government is allowing some payments to be made via their local banks but most of the time these payments may be made online. The biggest challenge is the fact that the government hasn't gathered it's requirements diligently to be able to create forms online to ease and smoothen the information exchange, mostly also because the requirements constantly change to accommodate inefficiency in processes. This often results to a need for a "fixer" or a "paid consultant" to "help ease" the "transaction"
   

3. Properly designed websites that present relevant data in an organized manner - good design often leads to less cost, but governments don't seem to understand what it means to have good design. (Author refuses to share a link of a government website with bad design because quite frankly, there aren't a lot of wonderfully designed government websites, though some have visibly improved, the author has not visited all the links to double check the following sites: (http://www.ltfrb.gov.ph/) or (http://www.philgeps.gov.ph/))
   

3) Presentation of New Laws and Rules

There are several things that one must consider when you look at the presentation of law: a) Current laws - laws that are currently active b) Pending laws - laws that are awaiting house decision and c) Inactive laws - laws that have gone out of touch from society or have expired so as to prevent confusion!

I did bother taking a look at our Congress' website (http://www.congress.gov.ph/download/index.php?d=billstext) and quite frankly it's difficult to read through it, the design, aesthetics, color scheme is terrible. -- it's as if nobody wants you to go that sad, sad site on the web (gray text over gray background = ouch to my eyes)

Quite frankly, unless the government can do a better job than Chanrobles.com, they're out of business.

Solution: Consider outsourcing the curation and management of these sites, obviously nobody in the government seems to want to do it to be bid out constantly to drive constant innovation. Congress could also extend it's presence on social media after all, the purpose of Congress is to listen to the people not sit on their high chairs in rooms with high ceilings.

4) Government Transactions

At the moment, truth be told it seems like this is where the Philippines excel the most, our PhilGEPS (Philippine Government Electronic Produrement System) seems to be working but can still be improved!

Solution: It seems like they're already doing what needs to be done!

5) Reconciliation and Audit

Finally, For many who are in the business of ERPs, CRMs, Accounting softwares and/or Financial Systems. It is well known that executive decision can only be made when the drivers of the organization have clear visibility of their organization's operation. Most often, decisions are made after data is presented.

If you accept and believe that the driver of government is the people, then, it is necessary (for the citizens of a village, city, provinces or nations) to have access to the latest and most available financial data.

This is probably the most expensive part of the government, but the cost of inefficiency is even more expensive. The same inefficiency in the system, allows officials with bad intention to take advantage of the delay we often call in management: information asymmetry.

Some if not often, most of of these officials dread the day that we say efficiency, an example of ways these processes maybe taken advantage of is in headcount. As a result, we often find many of these so-called "ghost employees" on top of the unproductive ones our government hire:

(http://www.malaya.com.ph/index.php/news/nation/2982-weeding-out-govt-ghost-employees) (http://manilastandardtoday.com/2012/09/18/payroll-plan-to-drop-ghost-employees/) (http://www.philstar.com/metro/2012/07/10/826185/paulate-3-others-suspended-over-ghost-employees)

Solution: implementation of e-government accounting, hiring of highly skilled IT technocrats to facilitate in the management of these systems.

The execution of these laws should be coupled with the right incentives to encourage the brilliant minds to work on the solutions.

Again just to disclose as mentioned earlier, this is a very high level bullet point of what can be done to further improve government processes. This is exclusive of policy as it is neither my domain nor expertise and it is also reprieved of executional details as each function may have special purpose.

Early thoughts, also we could probably synthesize all these points later on and present what might be the overall cost of this project but I'm running out of time to actually do that!

If you'd like find a way to work on it, just hit me up and let's find a way to get a project or two rolling!