President Marcos sets example in streamlining bureaucracy by reorganizing Office of the President

Meeting with reporters after his first Cabinet meeting last July 6, President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. said that one of his first directives to his Cabinet members is to streamline the bureaucracy. He said he told them they had “a relatively free hand in deciding who you want to hire and how you want to change the structure of your department if indeed that’s what you want to do, but do it soon because we have work to do and we have to go to work immediately.”

Days later, he made good his word by setting the example. He issued two consecutive executive orders involving the streamlining of the organization of the Office of the President.

In Executive Order No. 1, he ordered the abolition of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) and the Office of the Cabinet Secretary. In Executive Order No. 2 he reverted to the Office of the Press Secretary and placed the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) under the Office of the President.

The PACC’s powers and functions were transferred to the Office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs, which shall make recommendations on matters requiring its actions to the Executive Secretary for approval of the President. The functions were transferred to the Office of the Deputy Executive Secretary for Legal Affairs, which shall make recommendations on matters requiring its actions to the Executive Secretary for approval of the President.

With the abolition of the Office of the Cabinet Secretary, the functions of the Cabinet Secretariat have been transferred to the Presidential Management Staff (PMS) and, in coordination with the Executive Secretary, this unit will “assist the President in the establishment of agenda topics for Cabinet deliberations, or facilitate the discussions (in) Cabinet meetings.”

Executive Order No. 1 also cites the role of the Common Staff Support System in the Office of the President: “The Office of the Special Assistant to the President, the Special Presidential Assistants and Advisers, and the Presidential Management Staff shall coordinate with the Executive Secretary in providing staff support to the President.”

Executive Order No. 1 establishes the primacy of the Executive Secretary in the President’s Cabinet as it states further: “The Office of the Special Assistant to the President and the Presidential Management Staff shall provide support and assistance to the Office of the Executive Secretary in the overall management of the development process.”

After several administrations in which its functions had been distributed to several units, the Office of the Press Secretary has regained its traditional identity. The Press Secretary also assumes the functions of the Presidential Spokesperson. The Philippine Information Agency (PIA) which has field offices throughout the country, has been placed under the Office of the President.

By modeling the change in his own office, President Marcos has conveyed that he means business in making government more responsive to the people’s needs, and that after more than two years of disruption brought on by the pandemic, the country is forging ahead at full throttle.