Pangan: On rightsizing

THE national government, thru its Department of Budget and Management (DBM), and Congress, will push through the proposed rightsizing plan that will affect some two million employees, trim about 5 percent of the workforce and save at least P14.8 billion in government resources.

It is the work of the DBM to prepare the bill that will effectively reduce the number of government agencies with over-lapping functions. The plan will affect 187 agencies, departments, offices and bureaus with an estimated two million workers, excluding teaching, medical and allied health services and military and uniformed personnel.

As it is, the government bureaucracy may have been bloated by appointees beholden to officials of the government in the bata bata system. Even the undeserving and unqualified ones were given access to government services bloating unproportionately the number of workers in government.

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman rationalized the rightsizing by saying: We will offer retooling program to others at the sam time we will give retirement benefits to those who will retire. The overall goal of this is to have a small bureaucracy that is agile and responsive.

Right, but will the rightsizing program not affect the ranks of experts and good professionals? Would not palakasan be employed in retaining the mediocre ones?

This rightsizing plan should have been implemented some decades back and only the deserving ones continued to be employed.

Opined Senator Loren Legarda: There are government agencies that have functions that overlap or are redundant. This makes them ineffective and inefficient and these also entail unnecessary expenses.

There were other senators supportive of the rightsizing plan which Sen. Angara said is probably overdue.

Sen. Francis Escudero, who was previously governor of Sorsogon said the plan not only save money but also make delivery of services more effective as was done in his home province.

Whatever may be the result of the rightsizing plan, the good point is that the welfare of the citizens is foremost in the priorities.