Malacañang yesterday announced the President has established the Office of the Presidential Adviser for Jobs Generation (OPAJG) to ensure that six million jobs are generated for Filipinos during her six-year term.
Under Executive Order 333 dated July 19, the President tapped outgoing Agriculture Secretary Luis Lorenzo to head the OPAJG with cabinet rank.
The new agency is assigned "to coordinate the effective and timely implementation of the government’s roadmap for jobs generation."
Lorenzo will oversee "the packaging of credit facilities, guarantee programs and other financial assistance packages" for small farmers and fisherfolk, small and medium enterprises, and other micro-business enterprises.
He is also authorized to monitor government financial institutions, including Land Bank of the Philippines and Quedan Rural Credit Guarantee Corporation and the private-sector resources to support the job generation program of the government.
Lorenzo will formally hand over his agriculture portfolio to National Food Authority Administrator Arthur Yap on August 15.
Besides his OPAJG post, Lorenzo will also assume the chairmanship of the Land Bank of the Philippines.
In her inaugural address, the President promised to create six million to 10 million jobs before she steps down in 2010. She said she plans to make three million entrepreneurs from micro financing and from the conversion of two million hectares of lands as agricultural hubs.
Absorption and not complete abolition of redundant government agencies, meantime, seems to be the policy of the President in reducing the bureaucracy in a bid to generate savings and improve quality of public service.
Mrs. Arroyo is expected to announce this weekend which surplus agencies under the Office of the President will be absorbed by bigger departments in line with the streamlining of government operations.
"These are not targeted for abolition but will be moved outside of OP so they will be relocated to agencies which more or less have the same agenda, which have more or less the same functions," presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said in a news briefing.
He said that the absorption of some agencies would not cost any employee his or her job. "I don’t think there will be immediate effect on the employment figures. It’s just a matter of placing supervision of these agencies under a different line department," he said.
Task forces, commissions or agencies no longer relevant or had already served their purposes, on the other hand, would still be abolished, Bunye said.
A day after promising to abolish 30 agencies under the Office of the President, the President bared Tuesday her plan to create an Office of Constituency Affairs to institutionalize the government’s consultations with the people during her informal town hall meetings.
