Marcos streamlines government performance-incentive system

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos has issued an order seeking to streamline the government performance management and incentives system and align it with ease of doing business initiatives and international standards.

Executive Order (EO) 61 aims to harmonize the Results-Based Performance Management System (RBPMS) and Performance-Based Incentive (PBI) System in government.

“The implementation of AO No. 25 (s. 2011) and EO No. 80 (s. 2012) and all other relevant issuances related thereto, is hereby suspended immediately pending review of the RBPMS and PBI System,” based on the order, signed by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on June 3 and released by Malacañang yesterday.

Administrative Order 25 issued in 2011 established a unified and integrated RBPMS across all departments and agencies within the Executive branch of government.

On the other hand, EO 80, issued in 2012 as amended by EO 201 in 2016, adopted a PBI System, consisting of Productivity Enhancement Incentive and the Performance-Based Bonus, to motivate higher performance and exact greater accountability in the public sector and ensure accomplishment of government commitments and targets.

“It is imperative to streamline, align and harmonize the RBPMS and PBI System with ease of doing business initiatives, and reform the government performance evaluation process and incentives system towards a more responsive, efficient, agile and competent bureaucracy,” EO 61 said.

Malacañang said the RBPMS and PBI System “have been duplicative” and “redundant” with the internal and external performance audit and evaluation systems of the government, and lacked a review mechanism leading to the accumulation of rules, regulations and issuances from the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Harmonization of National Government Performance Monitoring, Information and Reporting Systems.

“It makes compliance burdensome, bureaucratic, laborious and time consuming for government agencies,” the Presidential Communications Office said in a statement on Saturday.

Under EO 61, a Technical Working Group (TWG) will be formed to study and review the RBPMS and PBI System with the budget secretary as chair and the executive secretary