Reluctance among government agencies to interconnect and interoperate continues to be a major hurdle in boosting transparency and accountability in government transactions, according to the chief of the Anti Red Tape Authority (ARTA).
During the Makati Business Club (MBC) Business-Government Forum on Tuesday, February 24, ARTA Secretary Atty. Ernesto V. Perez noted that government agencies are still working in silos and remain hesitant to interconnect and interoperate.
Some agencies and local government units are also reluctant to move away from their traditional systems. ARTA likewise faces budgetary constraints in implementing its programs nationwide.
Other challenges include the lack of digital infrastructure in remote areas and inconsistent application of national and local laws.
Perez said that in discussions about transparency and accountability, it is important to recognize that the main barrier is rarely intent—it is the way institutions are built.
“In many departments, transparency is still treated as an ‘add-on’ after the work is done, rather than something embedded in the workflow. Capacity constraints, fragmented records across emails, files and physical documents, risk aversion, and unclear ownership all make it harder to implement accountability mechanisms that are not merely performative; not just for show,” he said.
At the outset, he explained, it is easy to equate transparency with disclosure: publishing the Citizen’s Charter, posting requirements and fees, releasing memos, uploading datasets, and showing processing times. These are important—and in fact, many of ARTA’s reforms begin there—because citizens and businesses can’t comply with rules they can’t clearly see.
However, he pointed out that as they delved deeper into anti-red tape efforts and bureaucratic efficiency, “I realized disclosure is only the surface of transparency. You can publish a charter and still have a process that is opaque in practice. People can still be asked for additional documents, follow-ups can still happen off-record, and delays can still be explained away without accountability. That’s where transparency has to mature into something operational: decision-traceability and answerability.
Decision-traceability is when the public—and management—can reliably see:
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What happened to an application or request
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Who acted on it
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What regulation or standard was applied
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Why a decision was made (approval, denial, return, or delay—anchored on reasons that are recorded and reviewable)
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Whether it met service standards (and if not, what triggered escalation or corrective action)
In ARTA’s view, Perez said, this is crucial because red tape often thrives in the “gray areas”—where steps aren’t visible, discretion isn’t bounded, and responsibility is diffused.
“Traceability reduces that gray area. So now, when I say transparency, it’s not just ‘publishing more,’ it’s about making government decisions legible and auditable,” he said.
