The Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP), on 18 September 2015, in its continuous effort to advocate adherence to a culture of excellence among public sector organizations, had successfully launched the Government Excellence Class (GEC) Self-Assessment Validation endeavor as part of Government Quality Management Program’s (GQMP) capacity-building activities.
The GEC serves as a complementary mechanism to the Philippine Quality Awards (PQA) in motivating public sector organizations to practice and institutionalize business excellence. It also encourages objective self-assessment and responsive planning for identification of appropriate technical interventions that will further improve the country’s governance. Primarily, the GEC aims to foster adoption of a culture of excellence in the public sector through implementing GEC self-assessment and action planning deployment, adopting Business Excellence (BE) framework, recognizing BE-practicing agencies with commendable performance, and sharing of best practices among public sector organizations.
Responding to the call for organizational excellence, twelve (12) government organizations, dubbed as the “first wave of GEC participating government organizations”, have enlisted to the GEC Program in 2015. The City Government of Tanauan, City Government of Victorias, Department of Interior and Local Government – Central Office (CO), Department of Labor and Employment – Regional Office (RO) III, Department of Social Welfare and Development – CO, Department of Trade and Industry – RO II, Local Government of Carmona, Philippine Heart Center, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, Schools Division of Santiago City, Department of Education, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, and University of the Philippines Diliman were recognized and awarded with plaques of recognition for their participation in the GEC Program during the 1st International Conference on Productivity and Innovation in November 2015 at Novotel Manila, Araneta Center, Quezon City. To date, the aforementioned organizations were already done with their self-assessment.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Benjamin Diokno, as Chairman of the Government Quality Management Committee (GQMC), also gave high appreciation to the awardees in his opening remarks. He commended the strong commitment of the agencies’ key officers and staff for the challenging journey they went through to improve delivery of quality products and services to the public. Secretary Diokno emphasized that the problems usually encountered in government offices in terms of quality services are now easier to address if system failures are recognized and appropriate actions or reforms are developed through improved processes and standards.
Moreover, in order strengthen GEC’s promotion and to attract more participating agencies, DAP envisions bringing the program to different regions of the country by means of a roadshow. Thus, the Academy has already successfully hosted the first GEC regional roadshow for the Southern Tagalog Region on 20 May 2016. The Forum was well-attended by various government organizations from all over the Philippines, and fifteen (15) new government organizations have expressed their interest in enlisting to the GEC Program.
The GEC activities in 2016 were capped off by the first GEC Validation Visit. The DAP-GEC Validation Team assisted the Philippine Heart Center (PHC) and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) on December 15 and 16, respectively. The purpose of this activity was to provide feedback on how the agencies can obtain more value from the self-assessment process. This activity was also both well-attended not only by the staff who participated in the self-assessment, but also by the top management of each agency. Their presence during the validation is a good manifestation of their commitment to organizational performance excellence.
The SBMA GEC core team and top management pose with the DAP-GEC Validation Team after the completion of the GEC Validation Visit.
