8888 Citizens’ Complaint Center (PH0047)

What is the public problem that the commitment will address?: The bureaucratic red tape is the main cause of delay in public service delivery and other government transactions. This is often exacerbated by corruption on various levels of government due to ineffective or lack of accountability mechanisms.; What is the commitment?: Citizens are provided a platform to report their complaints and grievances that will result to an immediate and appropriate government response.; How will the commitment contribute to solve the public problem?: The Establishment of the 8888 Citizens’ Complaint Center will serve as a mechanism where citizens may report their complaints and grievances on acts of red tape and/or corruption in any government agency or instrumentality. The Complaints Center will provide different communication channels (24/7 hotline, email, text, website, social media, etc) in order for the public to directly inform the government of any bottlenecks in the delivery of services as well as the conduct of transactions. Through this initiative, the government emphasizes the importance of citizen satisfaction. The information provided through these complaints is valuable in reforming the systems and processes in the bureaucracy. In turn, it is hoped that this will pave the way for people to once again have faith in their government.; Why is this commitment relevant to OGP values?: • Public Accountability. By creating a formal feedback mechanism, all public officials are under constant scrutiny. This initiative would require them to justify existing practices or reform them if necessary, as well as to come up with appropriate response to criticisms and expressions of public satisfaction. • Civic Participation. Opening channels to facilitate redress of grievances empowers the people and encourages them to be more vigilant in monitoring the integrity of government transactions. This is a significant step in helping them take a more active role in governance by acknowledging the issues they raise. • Technology and Innovation for Openness and Accountability. The initiative provides, through multiple communication channels, an open and accessible platform for real-time feedback to help resolve bottlenecks in public transactions and service delivery. The use of new and emerging social media platforms can further expand its reach and encourage more people to voice their concerns.

4A. Engage and empower citizenry through an effective government feedback mechanism.

Commitment text from action plan:

“Citizens are provided a platform to report their complaints and grievances that will result to an immediate and appropriate government response."

Milestones

1. "Publication and distribution of the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) and the Manual of Operations
2. Establishment of the 8888 Citizens’ Complaint Center at Mabini Hall, Malacanang
3. Institutionalization of Hotline 88888
4. Submission of quarterly reports to the President on the activities and accomplishments of the 8888 Citizens’ Complaint Center, to be made available to the public.”

Editorial Note: For the complete text of this commitment, please see Philippines’ action plan at https://www.opengovpartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Philippines_-Action-Plan_2017-2019_updated.pdf

Context and Objectives (Commitment Design)

The aim of the commitment was to set up a citizen’s complaint hotline and referral system in which citizens could file complaints and grievances that the hotline’s support system would immediately refer to the concerned agencies for immediate, concrete, and appropriate action. According to the Office of the Cabinet Secretary, the response would be within 72 hours. ^[51]

In the period before this action plan, making frontline service delivery efficient, non-corrupt, and consistently responsive to citizens was a challenge for the Philippines. ^[52] With efforts of concerned government agencies like the Civil Service Commission (CSC)’s Report Card Survey and Contact Center ng Bayan, agencies had established their Citizens’ Charter and feedback mechanisms that set performance standards and generate citizen feedback. However, there was still much room for improvement in consistently observing the standards, in encouraging more citizens to use the feedback mechanisms to file complaints, and in ensuring government agencies responded decisively to complaints and used feedback to further improve services. ^[53]

This commitment planned to institutionalize Hotline 8888, a platform launched in 2016, whereby complaints and grievances may be reported, alerting government agencies to take immediate action. Hotline 8888 includes various communication channels: phone, email, text, website, social media, and so on. In addition, quarterly reports on the activities and results from the hotline would be addressed to the president and made publicly available.

As designed, this commitment was expected to have minor potential impact. Through Hotline 8888, increased opportunities for citizen feedback was expected to improve citizen satisfaction with government services and reform service delivery in the bureaucracy. However, as the hotline was launched prior to this commitment, the hotline was already receiving 1,000 calls a day by January 2017. ^[54] The commitment did not identify the degree to which it would increase the receipt or resolution of citizen feedback or complaints.

In addition, based on the commitment’s design, it appeared it would be challenging to scale up the volume of complaints, particularly on agencies widely perceived as corrupt. ^[55] The commitment also did not describe mechanisms to ensure quick response from agencies or to implement citizen feedback to improve service delivery systems. ^[56] However, the potential extent of these challenges was mitigated by Hotline 8888’s political positioning directly under the Office of the President, which is well-positioned to compel an expedient response from other government agencies.

Commitment Implementation

This commitment’s implementation was substantial at the end of the implementation period. According to government’s end-of-term self-assessment report, ^[57] internal administrative work for the setting up of Hotline 8888 was completed (milestone 1). However, its manual of operations had not been amended. Regarding the institutionalization of the Hotline (milestone 3), the government noted that a number of technical activities were carried out, such as training civil servants and hardware set-up. This did not include broader legal or institutional framework reforms to ensure sustainability of this initiative. With respect to milestone 2, there is a functioning 8888 Citizens’ Complaint Center at Mabini Hall, Malacañang (i.e., Philippines’ presidential palace) that received 690,661 calls, from which 144,057 complaint tickets had been generated by 2019. ^[58] These figures represent a similar rate of calls received when compared to that of 2016. By May 2019, most of the complaints (94,152) had been closed, with citizens receiving a final response.

Among the factors that enabled substantial commitment completion was the executive’s political buy-in. According to government, Hotline 8888 was a central priority under the incumbent presidential administration: it is “under the direct supervision of the Office of the President” and “the Presidential Communications Operations Office directly helps promote the enterprise by hosting a television show which addresses the complaints of our citizens through the said hotline.” ^[59]

This commitment contributed to marginal improvements in access to information and public accountability. As mentioned, Hotline 8888 was established prior to the implementation period. However, the hotline was actively promoted and further institutionalized from 2017 to 2019, extending its contribution to public accountability. For example, the president publicly criticized the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag IBIG) in 2019 for “mounting complaints.” ^[60] Consequently, the fund took steps to resolve all calls received that year and began to receive fewer complaints. According to an executive officer, in 2018, Pag-IBIG was fifth “in terms of the number of calls” received, and it aimed to significantly reduce this amount by the first half of 2019. ^[61] In March 2020, the agency stated that it had resolved “all 2,196 calls from the 8888 hotline in 2019” in line with the president’s instructions. ^[62]

Other agencies that were called out by the president, based on Hotline 8888 results, included the Land Transportation Office (LTO), Social Security System (SSS), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and Land Registration Authority (LRA). All these agencies committed to streamline their procedures and reduce complaints in a meeting in the presidential palace in August 2019, organized by the Anti-Red Tape Authority. ^[63] Despite these developments, all agencies were not equally responsive, and 21% of outstanding complaint tickets received at the time were still awaiting response at the end of the implementation cycle in August 2019. ^[64] According to Mr. Arnel Caranto, CSO representative for Life Inc., pressure for improved performance by public institutions “is already embedded in the core system.” According to Mr. Caranto, “The pressure is automatically felt by the concerned agency or individual through the written complaint and consistent requests for explanation regarding the reported irregularity,” which may even lead to resignations. ^[65]

In terms of access to information, the government provided important figures on the use of Hotline 8888 and how it has handled responses to citizen claims. Reports on complaint processing were also made available through the “accomplishment reports” to the president, accessible online. ^[66] The 2017 accomplishment report, for instance, included data about total numbers of calls received (monthly and yearly), the nature and complexity of complaints received, and the list of government agencies that received tickets, among other indicators. It also includes quantitative information pertaining to the resolution of cases, both by national and subnational agencies, but does not include any details on specific actions taken to resolve complaints. ^[67] The government’s End-of-Term Self-Assessment Report also did not include references on response time; as noted above, citizens should expect to receive a response within 72 hours.

Next steps

The IRM shared the following recommendations with stakeholders during the prepublication review period for the design section of this report. They are included below for public record. ^[68]

• Gathering citizen feedback on the most crucial agencies is imperative to Hotline 8888’s success. Another key element is ensuring that citizens trust the system. Future action plans may consider enhancing the commitment by adding accountability elements that demonstrate that the system delivers reforms to agencies identified in complaints.
• The IRM recommends that aside from the regular reporting on activities and results to the president, Hotline 8888 focus more on reporting to users in a way that is easily consumable by ordinary citizens. Following an example of a similar hotline in Panama, ^[69] this commitment could include enhanced accountability mechanisms, such as 1) a case management tool for complaints received through the hotline; 2) disclosure of data on response rates by different agencies; 3) reports on improvements made as a result of citizen feedback; and 4) improvement plans with agencies to monitor progress on response times and solve recurring issues.