To the Public Financial Management (PFM) Committee, representatives from our resource institutions, development partners—of course, ADB who has been helping us [because] without them, I don’t think we’d have this very important document, our PFM Reforms Roadmap—colleagues, guests, and members of the press and academe, a pleasant day to everyone.
Assalamu alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
First, I would like to thank again the Asian Development Bank for hosting the launch of the PFM Reforms Roadmap 2024-2028. This event is an excellent opportunity to delve into the specific strategies for harmonizing PFM policies across agencies and digitalizing our PFM processes to improve public service delivery.
Just a few weeks ago, during the Ceremonial Endorsement of the PFM Reforms Roadmap, President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. himself emphasized that “it is one thing to create policies, but another to ensure that they are properly implemented with real, tangible results that will be felt by ordinary Filipinos.”
And this principle has guided us throughout the process of reviewing, re-engineering, and devising this strategic roadmap that we have today.
With the recent passing of House Bill 10800, or the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) in the House of Representatives, we, as public financial managers, face an increasingly significant challenge: upholding fiscal discipline, ensuring efficient allocation and use of our nation's resources, and maintaining operational efficiency.
The good news is that the PFM Reforms Roadmap will guide us in doing precisely this. For one, it will expedite the adoption of the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) across all government agencies to ensure seamless and efficient government transactions.
Using the Application Programming Interface, we will establish “data highways” that will enable the linkage and data exchange between existing separate systems to a core central system—the Budget and Treasury Management System (BTMS). The BTMS, which we also hope to launch this quarter, will then facilitate real-time online accounting, monitoring, and oversight of obligations and disbursements, which are vital for making informed decisions about managing our government resources.
Moreover, the PFM Reforms Roadmap outlines crucial outcomes, interventions, and activities within eleven strategic focus areas, leaving no areas for improvement unturned. And to ensure that all these are accounted for, we will mobilize Task Teams for each strategic area. I trust that each agency lead and member will take appropriate and proactive action to drive these initiatives forward.
To name a few of our reforms, we will harmonize public investment management policies and guidelines and enhance information technology (IT) systems for planning and budgeting.
We will also sustain Citizen Participatory Audit for public expenditures and scale up our efforts in conducting performance audits to strengthen internal controls for public expenditure and revenue accounting.
Further, we will work towards empowering the PFM workforce across National Government Agencies, Government-Owned or -Controlled Corporations, and Local Government Units by updating the current PFM Competency Program, developing e-learning materials and tutorials, and establishing a PFM institute.
Ultimately, this roadmap will enable us to uphold the principles of transparency and accountability by putting digital transformation at the forefront of our reform agenda, which is key in achieving our goal of having an open government that delivers more efficient and more responsive public services to the Filipino people—true to the spirit of the Open Government Partnership.
With this roadmap, I am certain that we will sooner achieve our goal of an “A” credit rating as it will help solidify our country’s economic gains and further augment our overall credibility and stability.
I am also happy to share that this month, we are already in the second phase of the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability Assessment (PEFA)++ and Disaster Resilient and Responsive PFM Assessments. PEFA will thoroughly assess the state and health of our PFM and its responsiveness to gender, climate, and disaster risk reduction. It will further inform our PFM reforms initiatives and the mid-term review of the PFM Reforms Roadmap, ensuring that we are on the right track towards revolutionizing our financial management system.
Indeed, we have made significant progress, but we should also recognize that there is always room to do better and further elevate our efforts.
And so, I sincerely hope that today’s panel discussion will be productive and successful, centered on our collective goal of enhancing our PFM system and processes.
I also look forward to hearing our partners' commitments to implementing game-changing reforms towards the equitable, prudent, transparent, and accountable use of public funds. Together, let us ensure that our plans yield concrete and positive outcomes—towards a Bagong Pilipinas where Filipinos’ needs are delivered, and aspirations are fulfilled.
With this, I invite everyone to watch this video about the PFM Reforms Roadmap 2024-2028 explaining how we intend to make our vision of a digitalized and effective PFM system a reality in fulfillment of our Agenda for Prosperity.
Thank you very much.
Wabillahi Tawfiq Wal Hidaya, Wasalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa Barakatuhu.
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