PRESIDENT Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr.'s economic team earlier said that it was reviving moves to 'rightsize' the bureaucracy to get rid of redundant and inefficient government bodies — a move seen to free up some P14.8 billion in savings to be spent on social welfare programs instead. In this regard, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman disclosed that a proposal to rightsize the bureaucracy is being polished for submission to Congress before President Marcos' first state of the nation address (SONA) on July 25. According to the Budget secretary, the overarching objective of the rightsizing is to have a smaller bureaucracy that is agile and responsive to these new times. This is in line with the efforts of the Marcos administration to fix the programs of the agencies and address repetitive or overlapping functions. Accordingly, the rightsizing (or downsizing) aims to rationalize the functions of government agencies and determine which among the 187 government agencies and government-owned and -controlled corporations may be streamlined through merging, restructuring or abolition.

This proposal is indeed a laudable one which would finally put to task the entire government, including the legislative branch, to introspectively determine certain fundamental questions and answers on the purpose, relevance, priorities and historical impact to stakeholders of the different government agencies. This is, by no means, an easy task, considering the importance and long-term effect of this 'rightsizing' program. But if done properly and with the proper framework, this could very well result in easing the lives of the people dealing with the government and uncomplicating the task of the remaining or restructured agencies.