My distinguished predecessors at the DOF, Prime Minister Cesar Virata, Secretary Jose Pardo, Secretary Gary Teves, Secretary Ernest Leung and Secretary Cesar Purisima;
Officials of the Department of Finance, Colleagues, Friends and Family:
It is with a deep sense of honor and humility that I receive custodianship of the country’s oldest government departments.
Am told, the Department of Finance was organized on March 17, 1897. That is well over a month ahead of the organization of the Revolutionary Government on April 24, 1897.
Someone who should know once told me the Rosetta Stone, one of the oldest extant documents, contains many references to taxes on exotic clothes and corn lands.
It is true what they say: The Taxman Cometh First.
These historical tidbits indicate one thing: no government is possible without a secure flow of revenues. No revenue flow is possible unless someone steps up to the plate to be the person everybody hates.
In this new administration, that will have to be me. In fact, at the first meeting of the Duterte Cabinet, I had to say no to two proposals.
I looked at the list of my illustrious predecessors in this job. The inescapable conclusion one gets is that none of them will win any elective office in normal times.
The conclusion does not bother me. I am too old to aspire for anything beyond this job. But I am not too old to aspire to do this job as well.
Let me say about my predecessors: they have done an excellent job managing the debt crisis and restoring fiscal discipline. Because of that, we now find ourselves in an enviable position where the country has the luxury of investing in the many crying needs of our people today.
Over the past few weeks, I have been treated to a gauntlet of briefings. Everyone I run into, it seems, want to give me a briefing.
The more I am briefed, the more confused I get. All of them — the IMF, the World Bank, JICA, the credit rating agencies and the investment banks — seem to speak a strange language ordinary citizens will be hard put to comprehend.
To get my proper bearings, I decided to sit down and write out the basic features of my job.
The DOF is charged with defining fiscal policy. We must ensure sufficient revenue flow to look after the needs of our people. We are responsible for stable financial management and help in the development of our capital markets.
Those items sound simple enough.
There are a few things we need to pay particular attention to, given the lessons of the last elections. We need to quickly adjust our tax rates to bring them closer to reality. Our people expect that. It will also be good for business.
We need some dramatic changes in our two main revenue agencies, the BIR and the Customs Bureau. The changes have to do with simplification of procedures, improved automation and enhanced trade facilitation. Doing these things will reduce corruption and enable us to serve our clients better. More important, by improving efficiency in these revenue agencies, we will enhance the growth prospects of our economy.
I realize, from my previous incarnations as a Government official, is it so easy to confuse what government needs to do and what the nation really needs. I served two presidents before this. I learned much from those experiences. The most important lesson is that bureaucrats can make things easier for our people if they put their heart into it. I look forward to accomplishing much together with you all in making things easier for our citizens in the following months.
The previous administration, for example, tried very hard to conserve short-term revenues even it this meant playing down long-term costs to taxpayers and consumers. It is sometimes so easy to justify postponing improvements in the cost of doing businessby imagining some bureaucratic exigency. It is always so easy to tolerate inefficiencies in GOCCs by citing some political fallout.
A major reason why our people decided to vote in a new administration is that certain sense that government has lost touch with our citizens. We save and refuse to spend, to shore up our credit ratings.
The Department of Finance can no longer use its fancy calculations to continue its detachment from the everyday lives and everyday Filipinos. We need to do our job a little differently, a little more creatively.
Our first responsibility is to help deliver an economy that works for our people’s betterment.
In his inaugural address, President Rodrigo Duterte quoted franklin Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.”
We have gone through over two decades of fiscal forced marches and debt restructuring. Our people deserve better. We need to figure out what will reduce the quantum of misery our people endure and then work backwards from there.
These may be very broad strokes, but I feel there lies the essence of the challenge ahead. We were elected to office to bring progress for all. We must never lose sight of that.
These are, to be sure, very general marching orders. I am confident the DOF has the talent and the commitment to flesh out these general points and deliver a government capable of empathy.
Before I end, I would like to thank Secretary Cesar Purisima for organizing a transition team led by Undersecretary Malou Recente and Ken Abante. Their diligence resulted in a truly informative process.
My gratitude also goes out to all those who invested time and effort in the smooth transition process and to all of you for being here today.
This said, let us all buckle down to work.
Thank you and good day.