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Republic Act No. 9485--AN ACT TO IMPROVE EFFICIENCY IN THE DELIVERY OF GOVERNMENT SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC BY REDUCING BUREAUCRATIC RED TAPE, PREVENTING GRAFT AND CORRUPTION, AND PROVIDING PENALTIES THEREFORE. This is also known as the Anti-Red Tape Law.

One of the provisions of the law is: "to set up their respective service standards to be known as the Citizen's Charter in the form of information billboards which should be posted at the main entrance of offices or at the most conspicuous place, and in the form of published materials written either in English, Filipino, or in the local dialect, that detail: (a) The procedure to obtain a particular service; (b) The person/s responsible for each step; (c) The maximum time to conclude the process; (d) The document/s to be presented by the customer, if necessary; (e) The amount of fees, if necessary; and (f) The procedure for filing complaints."

The thing was, before the seminar-workshop, we were already told to prepare and make our own Citizen's Charter, present it during the workshop and expect it to be reviewed by the whole seminar-workshop attendees. While I fully appreciate their efforts to edit my presentation grammar-wise, it was weird and somewhat demeaning to be questioned about the necessity of your own procedures. As if you do not know what you are talking about or that you've been doing the wrong things all these times. I understand where they're coming from of course, nevertheless the feelings of inefficiency the nitpicking has brought on persisted. They’ve trimmed and snipped and compressed as many office procedures as allowed by the respective person in-charge. It was a good thing my boss attended the workshop with me because she had been able to defend our procedures and our Charter calmly.

The concern is that the government is not giving premium services to the public hence this law which would guide the citizens of the republic; However, changing an accepted standard of borrowing procedure or any office procedure for that matter just because an office wanted to present an efficient looking Citizen’s Charter and a seemingly short and red tape free service is not only undermining the whole service itself but its people as well. An efficient looking, seemingly red tape free Citizen’s Charter yet not a real and true to form procedural Citizen’s Charter is to my mind just as criminal as bureaucratic red tape. But since presenting a long Citizen’s Charter is viewed as another bureaucratic red tape (the citizens shouldn’t spend more time than necessary reading anything that might tax their minds) you are left to choose between the lesser evil. Any kind of Citizen’s Charter besides the real step by step, procedural one could land you in a hot seat because if the service provided is not what is stated in the Citizen’s Charter, the citizen concern could sue the office for red tape.