Welcome, President Duterte

At noon time today, the Philippines' new President Rodrigo R. Duterte has officially assumed office. In his short inauguration speech in Malacanang, he said,

Therefore, I direct all department secretaries and the heads of agencies to reduce requirements and the processing time of all applications, from the submission to the release. I order all department secretaries and heads of agencies to remove redundant requirements and compliance with one department or agency, shall be accepted as sufficient for all.

I order all department secretaries and heads of agencies to refrain from changing and bending the rules government contracts, transactions and projects already approved and awaiting implementation. Changing the rules when the game is on-going is wrong.

I abhor secrecy and instead advocate transparency in all government contracts, projects and business transactions from submission of proposals to negotiation to perfection and finally, to consummation.

Do them and we will work together. Do not do them, we will part sooner than later.

Good start, good message, President.

He also said that he will respect due process and the rule of law, good. All the foreign Ambassadors in Manila were there, officials of foreign aid, top legislators, etc. Very important audience + televised nationwide, so those pronouncements are reverberating now.

Immediate Past President Benigno Aquino also promised reduced business bureaucracies in his 1st SONA, July 2010. It only slightly happened. 

I think there is a disconnect between the elected, term-constrained politicians and the forever bureaucrats. The former are kept on the ground especially during the campaign period, and after their term ends and they lose an election, they go back as private citizens, subjected to regulations and bureaucracies.

The full time bureaucracy often have zero plan of being regulated, they only plan to be regulators until they retire. So it is this group of people who will ultimately resist moves towards reducing government bureaucracies and regulations.

I hope that the new President will pounce his strong arm on the bureaucracy and force them to step back from heavy regulations, intervention and bureaucratism.