Category: Regulatory Reform

The project aimed to provide access to the benefits of Republic Act 10172 (An Act Further Authorizing the City or Municipal Civil Registrar or the Consul General to Correct Clerical or Typographical Errors in the Day and Month in the Date of Birth or Sex of a Person Appearing in the Civil Register without Need of Judicial Order, Amending for this Purpose Republic Act 948) for the urban poor of Barangay 631 in Manila. It also sought to provide the benefits of free filing fees and simplified procedures for correcting birth certificates instead of the usual court proceeding which was a tedious and expensive process. The project also hoped to improve civil registration services by avoiding commission of errors during the registration of birth, marriage and death certificates through the adoption and installation of the NSO’s Barangay Civil Registration System (BCRS) on the same barangay.

Background and Problem

RA 10172 was a consolidation of several House Bills which was approved on February 09, 2011, a year before the project started. The objectives of the law were basically  (1) to address the problem of delay in the processing of  vital documents  for  workers who wish to go abroad, applications for board examinations and claim for benefits of workers, retirees and pensioners; (2) to reduce the cost of correcting errors in the register of birth or marriage by allowing administrative corrections instead of judicial proceedings; and  (3) to de-clog the court dockets by authorizing administrative corrections, thereby improving the administration of justice. However, upon conducting a problem tree analysis, it was showed that the core problems as to the inability to correct a person’s birth certificate were due to (1) complicated procedures and too many required  documents; (2) the people did not understand the law; and (3) the people did not understand the procedures for correct birth registration.

Solution and Impact

To solve the problem, an objective tree analysis was done and the methods identified to provide solutions were (1) informed/adviced on procedures in filling-up of birth certificate, b) awareness of RA 10172, and c) simplified procedures for correcting birth certificates. In that regard, the following strategies are established:

  • To adopt Barangay Civil Registration Civil Registry System (BCRS) – Monitoring Vital Events Information Technology (MoVE-IT) system in a Barangay 631 so that it could monitor the occurrence and registration of birth, thus, preventing the occurrence of erroneous birth certificate;
  • To coordinate with the Local Civil Registrar Office (LCRO) Manila and simplify procedures for filing a petition for correction of birth records; and
  • To conduct information dissemination/seminars to increase public awareness on the importance of correct registration of birth certificates by document owners. They would be given legal advice and assistance regarding problems on civil registration. Collaboration with the Public Information Agency (PIA) would also be done to seek assistance for media coverage as well as coordination with the office of the Mayor to obtain support and endorsement.

After the implementation of the strategies, a survey was conducted to determine the after-state of the chosen barangay after the BCRS census and information drive. The results are the following:

  • Eighty-five (85) percent of the respondents remembered/understood the key messages during the barangay census and information drive;
  • Sixty (60) percent of Barangay 631 constituents reported that they had accessed to the benefits of RA 9048/ 10172;
  • The BCRS-MoVE IT was installed in Barangay 631 and now being used and operated by the Barangay officials; and
  • The implementation of the RA 10172 and the BCRS were aired in Radyo ng Bayan (through the PIA). The conduct of BCRS census and information drive was also posted in the NSO website and was eventually printed in the newspapers such as the Manila Bulletin and the Philippine Star.

The BCRS served as a tool to monitor the occurrences of future births, marriages and deaths in the barangay. It served as a pre-registration basis for birth, marriage and death for the barangay to gather the information from the constituents and gave an opportunity to check the corrected information before its submission for registration to the LCRO.

Milestones

Prior to the project implementation, the project obtained permission from the mayor of Manila and collaborated with the City Civil Registrar of Manila to help facilitate the filing of petitions for correction of clerical error for birth, marriage and death certificates under simplified process. The project also conducted an information drive at Barangay 631 for them to understand and avail the benefits under the new law.  The project offered free legal advice and taught the barangay constituents on how to fill-up the petition forms for correction of entry in the birth certificates. There were more than 130 people who were given legal advice to solve their problems regarding their birth and marriage certificates. The project prepared leaflets and bookmarks on RA 10172 and coordinated with PIA through Philippine Broadcasting System Radyo ng Bayan to further promote the advocacy. Newsletter about the information drive on RA 10172 was also uploaded at NSO Website.

In order to avoid future commission of errors in birth, marriage and death certificates, the project installed the BCRS at Barangay 631 which is a pilot test to adopt it in an urban area. The BCRS program was developed using Drupal software and the database was stored in the computer donated by NSO to Barangay 631.

Note: This initiative is based on the Public Management Development Program (PMDP) Re-Entry Plan of Ms. Maribeth C. Pilimpinas of the PMDP Middle Manager Class Batch 1 (Tanglaw).

Listahanan, or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR), is an information management system that employs geographic targeting, household assessment, and validation in order to provide national government agencies, development partners, and other social protection actors with information on who and where the poor are in the Philippines. This information is then used for the identification and selection of potential beneficiaries for various poverty alleviation and social protection programs.

Background and Problem

The DSWD has relied in the past on program-specific targeting mechanisms, which employed varied and often inconsistent methods—an approach which was short on uniformity and objectivity, and often relied on self-declared data from potential beneficiaries. This lack of standardization meant inefficiency and high costs, as each new program would have to bring its own targeting approach to bear. Results were also unsatisfactory, with cases of leakage (the inclusion of non-poor beneficiaries) and deprivation (the exclusion of poor beneficiaries) in the delivery of services to the poor. This, coupled with limited resources, means that ensuring the equitable distribution of services to the poor through a standardized, accurate, and reliable targeting system is essential in addressing poverty.

Solution and Impact

NHTS-PR reduces both the leakage and deprivation of social protection programs and services by establishing an objective targeting system that compiles information to create a database of identified poor families and households. Utilizing a unified set of criteria for identifying the poor ensures that resources and efforts are concentrated on those who most need assistance, ensuring lower costs, better impact, and increased transparency and credibility of social protection programs. The identification of poor households follows a four-phase project cycle.

This begins with the Preparatory Phase where target areas for household assessment and the appropriate data collection strategies are identified. This is followed by the Data Collection and Analysis Phase. During this phase, DSWD-hired enumerators conduct household interviews to gather basic and socio-economic information through a standardized questionnaire called the Household Assessment Form (HAF), which is then processed through a proxy means test (PMT) that estimates family income and compares it to the provincial poverty threshold. For the last phases, the results of the PMT are then validated locally, finalized, compiled, and generated into National and Regional Profiles of the Poor. Data sharing partnerships with various social protection stakeholders are established through a memorandum of agreement to ensure data privacy and to guarantee that the data will only be used as guide for selecting beneficiaries and developing various poverty alleviation and social welfare and development programs.

Milestones

In 2009, the NHTS-PR conducted the first round of assessment which resulted to the identification of 5,255,118 poor out of 10,909,456 households assessed. In 2010, Executive Order No. 867 entitled, “Providing  for  the  Adoption  of  the National  Targeting  System  for  Poverty  Reduction  as  the  Mechanism  for  Identifying  Poor Households  Who  Shall  Be  Recipients  of  Social  Protection  Programs  Nationwide” was issued. This mandated government agencies to use the NHTS-PR data as basis for selecting beneficiaries of their social protection programs. The data generated from the first assessment were shared with 1,256 data users comprising of 55 National Government Agencies (NGAs), 1,095 Local Government Units (LGUs), 56 Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), 34 legislators, and 15 academic institutions and researchers. NHTS-PR became the basis for selecting beneficiaries of notable government programs such as the PhilHealth Indigent Program and Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps). The former subsidized the insurance premium of all 5.2 million poor households while the latter provided health and education grants to 4.2 million. These are only among social protection programs that provided targeted services to the poor in the fields as diverse as education, employment, health and nutrition, maternal and childcare, water and sanitation, shelter, electricity, and environmental protection. NHTS-PR is also supported by international partners such as the World Bank and the Australian Department of Trade and Industry.

In compliance with Section 2 of EO 867 which requires the DSWD to update the NHTS-PR every four years, the Department embarked on its second nationwide assessment. In preparation for the said assessment, new guidelines, protocols and systems were put in place to maintain transparency and objectivity, ensure faster and efficient implementation, and prevent political interference in its implementation. A new PMT model was also developed using variables lifted from the 2009 Family Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES), Labor Force Survey (LFS), and 2007 Census of Population and Housing (CPH). It features a 2nd stage screener that weeds out possible inclusion errors. These improvements in the PMT model lowered its model-based error rates, from having 22-25% and 31-35% inclusion and exclusion rates, respectively, in the 2009 model to having 10.6-13.8% and 6.8-19.3% inclusion and exclusion rates in the 2013 model. The said assessment resulted in the identification of 5.1 million poor out of 15.1 million households assessed.

With the result of second assessment, the Department was able to track changes in the status of previously identified poor households, particularly of 4Ps beneficiaries. Of the 4.2 million beneficiaries of the said program, 1.3 million households registered as non-poor. After two assessment cycles, the NHTS-PR data continues to be a vital information resource for the government, providing an objective basis for beneficiary selection and a rich data resource for planning, developing and monitoring program interventions.

Testimonial

Excerpt from the Country Director of the World Bank Philippines, Dr. Mara Warwick, during her Remarks at the 2015 Listahanan Launch

“Grounded in empirical studies, the World Bank recognizes Listahanan as a leading “good practice example” for a growing number of countries that aspire to introduce such registries. This brings me back to my original question: why is Listahanan so important? I would like to highlight four key reasons. First, by enabling the Government to target programs to the poor and vulnerable, Listahanan is increasing both the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending. It is also improving the governance of Social Protection in the Philippines by removing political patronage from distribution of public resources to citizens. Let me elaborate. Listahanan tells the Government who poor families are and where they live. It ensures that the intended beneficiaries of public funds for poverty reduction have names and faces. This enables objective selection of the beneficiaries of government programs through the use of transparent, objective and verifiable criteria, validated by the community, to estimate poverty in Filipino families. Using the so called “proxy means test method,” poverty lines determined by the Philippines Statistics Service and community validation, Listahanan 2015 has identified 5.1 million households who are poor.

Targeting anti-poverty programs to those 5.1 million households will be critical to realizing the aspiration to end poverty in the Philippines within a generation. Listahanan is the key platform for such targeting, just as Listahanan 2010 was used to identify beneficiaries of government programs. Second, Listahanan is important because its impact is far-reaching across the Philippines. Listahanan is currently used by 59 national agencies to target programs where they are needed most, including the Pantawid, and the PhilHealth subsidized health insurance. It enables transparent and fair selection of beneficiaries of government programs. How? Programs draw initial lists of poor and vulnerable families from Listahanan, and the families are then checked for program specific eligibility requirements. When the families meet the requirements, they receive the benefits. In addition to Pantawid and PhilHealth, Listahanan is also used by 1,095 Local Government Units, 56 Civil Society Organizations, 34 legislators, and 15 universities and research institutions.

Looking ahead, we hope that Listahanan 2015 will add value to all government agencies and LGUs towards maximizing the impact of public funding and ensuring that the poor and vulnerable benefit from their respective programs. Third, Listahanan is important because of what it means for all citizens. Listahanan is an anchor for an objective and transparent approach to selecting beneficiaries. Such transparency is important for citizens, affecting how people perceive their government. Citizens are able to see that public funding and government services are deployed fairly, rather than as gifts or as favors. This in turn signals an important shift and the beginnings of a deeper transformation in state-society relations: people start seeing government services as public goods rather than as personal rewards.

Fourth, as I mentioned before, Listahanan is important because its targeting performance is excellent by international standards based on the available empirical evidence. While there is no such thing as perfect targeting, the tool that you have developed does an excellent job in identifying the poor and vulnerable. Listahanan is supporting impressive results and must continue to evolve and adapt over time for even greater impact.”

The PEDAL is the centerpiece strategy of DTI Region 02 in bringing its service right in the heart of its clientele. It is a strategy that creates a web of productive partnership among the members of the community where it operates. With the Department’s two-pronged mission of “Enabling Business and Empowering Consumers”, the PEDAL impacts strongly on leadership, strategic planning and deployment, and customer and citizen focus.

Background and Problem

The DTI is committed in the improvement of the quality of life of Filipinos and in the reduction of poverty through inclusive economic growth and employment generation, with a focus on expanding exports, increasing investments, supporting and strengthening micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), ensuring value for money of consumers, and pursuing good governance. However, DTI Region 02 identified the following operational deficiencies:

  • Visibility of DTI Region 02 was only observed in few municipalities (about only 20% at the time);
  • The visitation of different staff to Local Government Units (LGUs) within the locality to coordinate various aspects of DTI services resulted to confusion as the Local Chief Executive would be dealing with several DTI personnel which further resulted to non-congruity/non-synchronization of project implementation;
  • No staff was responsible/accountable for the municipalities’ concerns;
  • Complete package of programs, projects, and services were not delivered;
  • There was no equitable and rationalized distribution of programs, projects, and resources; and
  • No standardization of staff workloads and targets

Solution and Impact

To address the said deficiencies, the PEDAL was designed which underlies the general scenario that all DTI personnel operate in the municipalities with their respective constituents. In order to do this, DTI Region 02 modified its official organizational structure and came up with an operational one to accelerate and upgrade its services, with the designation of Municipal Trade and Industry Officers (MTIOs), who are assigned to a number of municipalities, to handle: five to six Senior Trade and Industry Development Specialist (STIDS);  three to four Trade and Industry Development Specialist (TIDS); and two to three Trade and Industry Development Analyst (TIDA), depending on the size of the provinces. In this case, it is imperative for a technical staff to know and learn the programs, activities, and projects of DTI. The said strategy was enforced throughout the whole organization. While initially, there was resistance from other staff, this is now well accepted and has proven to be effective and efficient in the delivery of services and in empowering the personnel of the organization, thus deepening their service commitment. The initiative also made the DTI more visible in the municipalities. The constituents of the municipalities have now an array of awareness levels with regards to DTI programs, activities, and projects. The number of MSMEs created had also increased; consumers are better informed of their rights and responsibilities; and compliance to the Fair Trade Laws are strictly being monitored.

Milestones

The PEDAL is both a managerial and an operational initiative that was envisioned to reach out and cover all the ninety-three (93) municipalities of Region 02, comprising the Provinces of Batanes, Cagayan, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, and Quirino. DTI Region 02, through the PEDAL, was able to:

  • Address the above-mentioned organizational deficiencies;
  • Paved the way for the “Ramdam-effect” of the projects (i.e. the projects were really felt by the citizens) of DTI which include the Industry Clustering, Shared Service Facilities, and Bottom-Up Budgeting; and
  • Became more innovative in the implementation of programs, activities, and projects such as:
    • Village enterprises;
    • The Progressive Operation of Women in Entrepreneurship Revolution (POWER) of 37;
    • Filipino Consumer on Patrol (FILCOP);
    • Improved Market Operations for Vigilant, Efficient and Responsive Services (I-MOVERS);
    • Modified SME Roving Academy; and
    • Trade Fair Facilitation.