News Feature: Citizen’s Charter for better public service

Thursday 11th of August 2011

Iloilo City, August 12 (PIA6) -- Carmen had been waiting for her turn to follow-up her papers with a government agency since 1:00 p.m., together with many others.

She had come all the way from her town, about two hours ride from the City, not to mention, the “habal-habal” (single motorcycle) ride from their barangay to the town proper.

At 4:30 p.m., she was next in line to be attended to, but the person manning the table where she was supposed to transact business with, stood up and told her and the rest to come back the following day since it was almost five o’clock.

Even after asking for reconsideration, she had no such luck and she was forced to stay with relatives for the night just to be able to finish her transaction.

Instances such as this should not happen if the agencies having front line service deliveries have a Citizen’s Charter, one requirement of which mandates that there should be no noon break and for as long as there are clients in the office they should be attended to.

This was the point made by Civil Service Commission (CSC) Chairman Francisco Duque, III when he spoke to heads of offices in Region 6 in his recent visit to Iloilo City.

According to Chairman Duque, the Anti-Red Tape Act or Republic Act 9485 of 2007 is an exemplary and very important piece of legislation which increases efficiency, stimulates productivity and a deterrent to graft and corruption.

RA 9485 requires agencies with front line services to put up a Citizen’s Charter.

The Citizen's Charter is the agency’s service standard in the form of information billboards, which should be posted at the main entrance of offices or at the most conspicuous place, and in the form of published materials written either in English, Filipino, or in the local dialect, that includes the procedure to obtain a particular service, the person/s responsible for each step, the maximum time to conclude the process, the document/s to be presented by the customer, if necessary, the amount of fees, if necessary and the procedure for filing complaints.

Duque said that if the public is served well, “the level of satisfaction is sustained" and it may "lead to public trust and confidence in government.”

The chairman said that the formal way of checking whether the Citizen’s Charter is being followed is through the score card survey or the ARTA Report Card Survey (RCS) where the clients who availed of the agency’s services are made to answer questions on the quality of service, timeliness, outcome and others.

Duque also said that inspection check is also conducted to validate the answers given by the client.

The results may be used by the agencies in improving or modifying their front line services or their Citizen’s Charters.

An agency that gets an excellent rating based on the survey are given the CSC Seal of Excellence Award in the form of a glass plaque which is mounted on the agency’s wall and a cash reward.

Duque said this is part of CSC’s vision that by 2030, the CSC shall be Asia’s Center of excellence for strategic Human Resource (HR) and Organizational Development (OD).

The CSC Chair told the Regional Directors, “may sinumpa-an tayo na pagsisilbihan ang bayan, that is why we should avoid giving service where people are naiinip, naiinis at natatagalan.”(JCM/PIA6)