THE AQUINO administration approved Tuesday the Good Governance and Anti-corruption (GGAC) Plan for 2012-2016 aimed at simplifying and integrating government database to fight graft and corruption.
Tuesday’s meeting in Malacanang was the second meeting of the Cabinet Cluster on Good Governance and Anti-corruption chaired by President Benigno S. Aquino.
Budget Secretary Florencio Abad presented the GGAC cluster plan to the Cabinet Tuesday and following a two-hour deliberation the proposal was approved without objection.
According to Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda the components of the cluster plan address problems of graft and corruption by timely analysis and reporting of government data.
“It also aims to harness a stable society as a partner in these efforts for better and detailed explanations,” Lacierda said.
Secretary Abad said the objective of the good governance and anti-corruption cluster is to fight corruption and ensure that public services are given to the people. The government also expects the business and economic environment to improve once the measure is in place.
The administration is pursuing three initiatives through the plan: transparency, accountability and citizen engagement, Abad explained.
“Pursuing transparency, accountability and citizen engagement requires us to also look into the necessary legislation and policy that need to be reviewed and strengthened. And then promote the digitization and innovations in governments operations. And finally, undertake an aggressive advocacy and communication campaign,” he said.
To ensure transparency in government transactions, the anti-corruption plan calls for mandatory disclosure of budget information of agencies and local government units (LGUs), Abad said.
The government is also expanding the operations of the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System to promote transparency, he said.
At the same time, Abad said that as a punitive action, the government will work for speedy resolution of different cases particularly those about graft and corruption. It targets to improve the annual case resolution rate of the Department of Justice (DOJ) from its present level to about 85 percent.
The Revenue Integrity Protection Service (RIPS) output will also be increased, Abad said adding the government is also strengthening its single portal for government information.
