Despite a rosy picture of government’s 99% passing score in its battle against red tape, Senator Ralph Recto is pressing for the opening of a Facebook account by the national government to be called “Feesbook”.

Recto, in an interview over DYRD “Inyong Alagad” this morning, May 2, 2016 said “this Feesbook account will show all the government transaction fees in one sitting to be incurred by the public with business dealings with the national and local governments”.

Next to crime, red tape is another scourge that the succeeding President needs to put on top of government’s “hit list” to put the country back in order”, according to Recto.

Ranked at a low 95th among 189 economies in overall ease of doing business, red tape, according to a World Bank report released on October, costs the country P140 billion in opportunity losses annually.

Recto stressed that doing business with government should be done “electronically” to avoid the long lines commonly experienced in various government agencies.

“Face to face transactions when dealing with government should be minimized to limit the number of times that an ordinary citizen has to go to government agencies to transact business”, Recto said.

Recto also proposed that government should adopt the services of call centers to answer queries from citizens to lessen the burden of government employees constantly responding to complaints.

The Civil Service Commission, who has been in the forefront to speed up government transactions thru the implementation of Republic Act 9485 known as the the Anti Red Tape Act (ARTA) of 2007 has established a call center facility called “Contact Center ng Bayan.

The CSC also expressed satisfaction on the results of the recent red tape survey showing a 99% satisfaction score in the delivery of frontline services by government agencies subjected to the ARTA report card survey. (Chito M. Visarra)