Marcos signs bill granting presidents power to reorganize exec agencies

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MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has signed the Government Optimization Act, giving him broad powers to restructure executive agencies and consolidate their functions.

Republic Act 12231 was enacted on Monday, August 4, right before Marcos left for his five-day state visit in India where he is expected to hold bilateral talks on economic and defense ties. 

The law covers all executive agencies, including departments, bureaus, offices and government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) not under the GOCC Governance Act of 2011. 

Among the powers granted to the president are the authority to:

• Strengthen the functions of agencies deemed essential to achieving “societal outcomes”
• Transfer or integrate functions across agencies to eliminate redundancy
• Split functions of agencies, bureaus or offices when they are found to be conflicting.

One of the president’s central powers under the law is to phase out or eliminate government functions that overlap with those the private sector can deliver more effectively.

If these functions and projects were already “devolved” or delegated to local governments, the measure allows the president to scale them down.   

Other than granting the president authority to reorganize the executive branch, the law also creates the Committee on Optimizing the Executive Branch to oversee the implementation of the government optimization program.

This committee will be responsible for recommending whether the president should implement “organizational and staffing actions,” which include merging, abolishing and deactivating agencies.

It is specifically tasked with developing policies, frameworks and conducting studies for the restructuring of agencies. 

The executive secretary will serve as the committee’s chairperson, while the Department of Budget and Management’s secretary as its co-chairperson. 

Members will include the Department of Economy, Planning and Development’s (DepDev) secretary, the Civil Commission’s chairperson and the Anti-Red Tape Authority’s director general. 

The measure also clarified that any transitionary period will not be interrupted during the reorganization of agencies and functions, so government operations will not be disrupted.

While the newly-signed legislation is focused on the executive branch, it also allows other branches of government such as the judiciary, legislative and local governments to optimize their own offices according to the law. 

The Government Optimization Act was one of Marcos’ priority measures as identified by the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC). It was initially titled the “Rightsizing the National Government Act of 2022.”