"A manifestation that government initiatives are effective is when it gets the backing of partners in the private sector in creating awareness and mobilizing the proactive participation of the public.”

This was said by Civil Service Commission (CSC) Chairman Francisco T. Duque III as he lauded Bantay.ph for initiating the inking of a Memorandum of Agreement which aims to educate the public on the merits of Republic Act No. 9485 or the Anti-Red Tape Act (ARTA) of 2007 and the CSC’s ARTA-related projects. Bantay.ph volunteered to disseminate easily understandable information materials on ARTA through the website:www.bantay.ph.

The CSC, being at the forefront of the implementation of the ARTA law, has been incessant in coming up with measures to improve frontline service delivery of government offices, and this partnership with Bantay.ph complements all of our initiatives,” added Chairman Duque.

A prominent provision of the agreement is the involvement of student-volunteers from the University of the Philippines–National College for Public Administration and Governance in drafting a volunteer program which will be rolled out in other academic institutions. The said student-volunteers will also visit government agencies in the National Capital Region to observe frontline service delivery and submit a report of their observations which the CSC will in turn validate to serve as basis in calling the attention of the agencies concerned if there are violations or in rewarding them for best practices.

Bantay.ph is a non-government organization under the Coalition Against Corruption and was formed in recognition of the need to empower citizen’s groups in the monitoring and evaluation of basic government services and programs.