Reducing some RP govt bureaucracies

Sometime in middle or late last month, the President of the Philippines abolished 10 agencies under it by allocating something like P1 annual budget for each of them. This should be one of the few good moves of the current administration. The projected savings will be PhP 305 million per year. The agencies abolished are:

Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG)
Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (PAGC)
Mindanao Development Council (MedCO)
Office of the North Luzon Quadrangle Area (ONLQR)
Office of External Affairs (OEA)
Minerals Development Council (MDC)
Luzon Urban Beltway Super Region (LUBSR)
Bicol River Basin Watershed Management Project (BRBWMP)
Office of the Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change (OPAGWCC)
Office of the Presidential Adviser on New Government Centers (OPANGC).

Most bureaucracies exist for themselves. It is very seldom that a bureaucracy would self-liquidate. They are more likely to perpetuate and expand themselves forever, as there are endless reasons and alibis to justify their continued existence. The most convenient alibi of course, is to "fight poverty" via endless mechanisms that they can think of.

These agencies are actually small fish. But if the current administration will focus on small fish, then there should be several dozens more that should be abolished under the different departments and bureaus in the Executive branch.

The Legislative branch can likewise do its share of shrinking or abolishing certain reduntant offices. I have worked at the House of Representatives for 9 years in the 90s, there are just too many bureaucracies, committees, special committees, and other offices that tend to over-lap or just duplicate the functions of other offices. The officers of offices whose functions are duplicated by another office will not complain because that woould mean lesser work burden for them.

Taxpayers will ultimately shoulder the weight and burden of huge bureaucracies in government -- from the Executive to Legislative to Judiciary branches.