The challenge

In the 2000s, citizens in the Philippines have

faced significant difficulties in receiving prompt and
efficient service from government departments and
agencies. For example, in order to start a business
Filipinos had to complete 11 individual procedures
and wait for at least 48 days for governmental
approval. This excluded the application for a
business permit at the local mayor’s office and
waiting for designated print shops to issue receipts,
which added even more time. As a result, in
its Doing Business 2007 report the World Bank
ranked the Philippines 126th out of 175 countries
for its "ease of doing business".[1] These long
waiting times and complicated bureaucratic
procedures were common to all the ministries that
provided services to citizens, from supplying
business permits to issuing driving licences.

Given these complex procedures, many citizens

sought illegal, corrupt ways to speed up the process.
Public servants were used to bribes, and they
routinely demanded them: “many of the people who
used frontline services – and the officials who
delivered them – considered bribery and
inefficiency routine”.[2] It was common to hire so-
called "fixers", who made special arrangements to
speed up transactions in exchange for a fee. This, in
turn, meant that the government was unable to
collect adequate revenue for the provision of its
services, while citizens became increasingly
disillusioned with the amount of red tape they
encountered.

Public Confidence Fair

Filipinos were used to a “red-tape culture"

in government services, and it was hard to change
these deep-rooted perceptions. “Here, corrupt acts
facilitate the daily transactions between citizens and
institutions, providing a survival mechanism which
serves as a palliative to the myriad inconveniences
produced by public bureaucracies.”[15]

The Philippines' "social weather station survey" of

December 2007 measured public opinion on
"eradicating graft and corruption" after the first six
months of ARTA. It found that 55 percent of the
population were dissatisfied with the government's
anti-corruption measures immediately after the
enactment of ARTA.[16] However, by 2010 the
public’s support for the anti-corruption strategy had
increased, in the wake of the election of Benigno
Aquino III

In 2009, the OMB and the CSC ran a campaign

against "fixers" and the activity of fixing, “an act
that involves undue facilitation of transactions for
pecuniary gain or any other advantage”.[17] This
campaign called on all government agencies to set
up anti-fixer posters in their entrance and distribute
"anti-fixer calling cards" to their clients, informing
them how to contact the CSC and the OMB in case
they were approached by fixers.

However, the CSC struggled to connect with the

public and raise awareness of ARTA and its
initiatives such as the Citizen's Charter. As such, it
was recommended by a study reviewing the
implementation of the Charter in 2012 that public
awareness needed to be raised.