Representatives from Landbank of the Philippines, Philippine Veterans Bank, Development Bank of the Philippines, Anti-Red Tape Authority, Bureau of the Treasury, our colleagues from the Department of Budget and Management; good morning and welcome to today’s MOA signing ceremony.

True to its theme, “Building Collaborative Partnerships with Financial Institutions for Future-Proofed Digital Transformation,” this landmark event is proof of our united goal to achieve bureaucratic efficiency through digital transformation, especially with our Authorized/Modified Disbursement Scheme-Government Servicing Banks namely Landbank of the Philippines, Philippine Veterans Bank, and Development Bank of the Philippines.

The implementation of the online release of the Notice of Cash Allocation or NCA through the Action Document Releasing System or ADRS aims to eliminate the unnecessary steps of printing, physically signing, routing, and releasing of the printed Action Document to the banks’ Liaison Officers.

Releasing these documents in digital format may seem like a small step but this is a crucial digitalization initiative as it will not only improve ease of doing business; it will also bring us an estimated cost savings of around Php 2.8 million per month or around Php 33 million per year with the reduced costs for security paper, printing, supplies, and transportation expenses for physical claiming of documents by agency representatives.

Since the beginning of my term as Secretary, the institutionalization of budget reforms and digital transformation of the bureaucracy have been my top priorities. In fact, our proposed 2023 national budget–which has been ratified by Congress last Monday–prioritizes the transformation and digitalization of government processes, records, and databases through e-governance.

As such, I am delighted to note our progress in the ADRS Module Roll-out. As of date, the online Special Allotment Release Order or SARO and Advice of Notice of Cash Allocation Issued or ANCAI had been fully rolled out to thirty-eight Departments and 363 Agencies. There are also 7,358 registered users of the ADRS.

This is only one of the many projects we have for digitalization. So let me take this opportunity to thank our champion for digitalization, Undersecretary Sasa del Rosario for her invaluable contribution to my advocacy to go digital. It’s not everyday the government gets to recruit one of the best from the private sector. Thank you. This only goes to show her commitment to digital transformation of the government. Indeed, we are lucky to have her in this journey.

Now as we sign and execute this Memorandum of Agreement between the DBM and our Government-Servicing Banks, may we not only delineate our duties and responsibilities as parties in this digital transformation initiative, but more importantly, strengthen our commitment to promote efficiency, transparency, and accountability to better serve our public.

Thank you. Assalamu alaikum.