Next to crime, red tape is another scourge that the succeeding president needs to put on top of the government’s “hit list” to put the country back in order, Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph G. Recto said over the weekend.
“If the next president has a hit list in the anticrime campaign, he or she must also draw up a hit list to cut down red tape in government transactions,” Recto said in a statement.
“For starters, the next president may consider extending the validity of motor- vehicle registration and drivers’ license as part of efforts to improve the ease of doing business in the Philippines,” he added.
Citing a report issued by the World Bank last October, Recto noted red tape costs the country P140 billion in opportunity losses annually. The same report ranked the Philippines at a low 95th among 189 economies in overall ease of doing business.
As one way of cutting red tape, Recto said the next administration must study proposals to limit the number of times that an ordinary citizen has to go to government agencies to get licenses and transact business.
“There is, for example, a proposal in the Senate to increase the validity of the registration of new cars to more than five years, and drivers’ license from three years to five, or six years,” Recto said.
Recto said extending the expiry dates on licenses and registration is “the best anti-red tape app.”
“It is commonsensical and costs nothing. We haven’t seen an increase in the number of LTO [Land Transportation Office] field offices that is commensurate to the tremendous rise in the number of vehicles,” he said.
Recto said concerns that a longer validity of permits will cut government income have no basis.
“If the permits will be valid for two years, then the government should double the fee. What’s important is that there will be no more annual pilgrimage to the LTO,” he said.
Recto also said adjusting existing pollution checks before a car can be registered will have to be made once the life of a car registration is lengthened by law.
Recto describes the LTO, which issues the permits, “as one big government cash machine.”
In 2013 its income rose to P17.2 billion, or a 17-percent jump from the P14.7 billion it earned in 2012.
The reason, Recto explained, can be traced to the steady increase in the number of motor vehicle registrations, from 7.13 million in 2011 to nearly 7.7 million in 2013.
“Simply put, more than half-a-million vehicles were added in two years,” Recto said.