Interdepartmental courtesy: Boon or bane?
Interdepartmental courtesy in government can be a boon when a cabinet secretary respects another secretary’s prerogative on what to do with the input he gives.
This follows the management principle of matching responsibility with accountability.
But we have also seen interdepartmental courtesy become a bane, especially in the anti-smuggling area.
This has resulted in more than P100 billion a year in lost government revenue, and the loss of jobs in both agriculture and industry.
AF 2025
During the Agriculture and Fisheries 2025 (AF 2025) Conference on February 10 to 11 last year, an important anti-smuggling recommendation was made.
This was for the Department of Agriculture (DA) to get the Inward Foreign Manifest (IFM) from the Bureau of Customs (BoC), which is supervised by the Department of Finance (DoF).
The IFM lists the imported product, vessel and arrival date two days before arrival. If DA has the IFM, it can easily identify the products without import permits and ask the BoC to apprehend the smuggled imports.
Unfortunately, the DA anti-smuggling coordinator was not assertive in asking BoC for the IFM.
Response
Lower-level government officials should not use interdepartmental courtesy as an excuse to shirk responsibilities to the public.
For the last year and two months, this has gone on to the extreme frustration of the farmers and fisherfolk.
In protest, the swine industry has decided on a nationwide “pork holiday.” This is when they will not sell pork for a week unless specific anti-smuggling action is taken.
The poultry sector, equally harmed by smuggling, has declared that it would follow suit.
When Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala discovered this problem, he wrote Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima on this issue last March 30. At the Cabinet Secretary level, interdepartmental courtesy is properly implemented. But at lower levels, some unscrupulous BoC elements use this excuse to deny the DA officials’ valid requests.
Sadly, some DA officials have accepted this without question.
Solution
Without the involvement of the private sector, we have seen misplaced interdepartmental courtesy as a reason for government failure. In the anti-smuggling campaign, it is not appropriate to bring all the anti-smuggling details to the secretaries of agriculture and finance.
The agriculture secretary is concerned with issues such as food security and rice self-sufficiency, while the finance secretary has issues such as balancing the budget with revenue-enhancing measures.
Anti-smuggling advocates have apparently failed in communicating the significant impact of smuggling on these issues.
Given our current situation of rampant smuggling, it is important that other high-level officials such as undersecretaries, who know how to use interdepartmental courtesy properly, be appointed as anti-smuggling focal persons at the DA and DoF.
Since industry is likewise severely affected by smuggling, DTI should join DA and DoF during the anti-smuggling meetings.
They can then recommend, and more importantly monitor, BoC’s anti-smuggling actions. One private sector representative each from agriculture and industry should participate during these meetings.
This happened at the immensely successful Cabinet Oversight Committee Against Smuggling (COCAS), which was abolished by the previous administration precisely because it was so effective.
The private sector may know more about how to fight smuggling than DA and DTI.
They should therefore be given significant participation in the Public and Private Partnership Against Smuggling (PPPAS) efforts.
Conclusion
Today, interdepartmental courtesy in the anti-smuggling fight is a bane because BoC has successfully used this to avoid transparency and accountability. One glaring example is BoC’s refusal to give the IFM to DA.
With the recommended structure of a PPPAS group composed of DA, DTI and two private-sector representatives overseeing BoC work, the proper use of interdepartmental courtesy will become a boon, rather than a bane, for our people.
(The author is chairman of AgriWatch).
