Cutting across borders to promote ease of doing business

THIS week, top officials of the Anti-Red Tape Authority (ARTA) conducted inspections in local government units (LGUs) in the countryside. In these inspections, our team checked to see the compliance of LGUs with provisions of Republic Act (RA) 11032 or the "Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Service Delivery Act of 2018." While inspecting outside of Metro Manila was not an uncommon activity for us at ARTA, these inspections were done in the lead-up to the rollout of the cARTAravan, where we planned to make our way to different regions in the country to boost awareness on the authority's ease of doing business and anti-red tape initiatives. This effort will be officially launched this Monday, Nov. 29, 2021, but last Friday, we already began our series of inspections n Pangasinan province in Region 1. In the coming days and months, we will also visit government agencies and LGUs in Region 2 (Cagayan Valley), Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and the Visayas region.

This activity has long been planned but was pushed back multiple times because of the ongoing pandemic. We, however, felt the strong urge to meet our constituents all over the country and even down to the grassroots level to ensure that the reforms that we have been institutionalizing are cutting across borders outside Metro Manila.