Belmonte proposes submission of accomplishment reports by Cabinet secretaries

House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. (Photo courtesy of Cong. Regina Ongsiako-Reyes / YesMarinduque.com)

MANILA—House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. proposed on Thursday the submission by all Cabinet secretaries of a brief report on their respective accomplishments and challenges hurdled while in office during the past six years.

“I’m calling on all Department secretaries to make a report of their six years of tenure as heads of their respective department. They can attune it to the President if they want to, but what we want is something that will be useful for the future, for everybody, and for their successors. It is their own viewpoint and their own estimation of the challenges they faced and the accomplishments they made,” the Speaker said.

According to Belmonte, the brief report should also identify problems faced by these Cabinet officials and their departments in implementing plans and programs, as well as recommendations on how these difficulties could be avoided in the future.

“The brief report would not only be a record of the Cabinet officials’ achievements but also be a good source of information for the people and serve as guideline for the officials’ successors,” Belmonte said.

In calling for the report, he noted that some Cabinet members only get their record of achievements and programs mentioned in President Benigno S. Aquino III’s State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) for maybe two paragraphs.

“But with their own report, they can properly highlight their key accomplishments as well as all the challenges they had faced,” he said.

“These highlights will serve as our own record of what happened in the past six years. The Cabinet secretaries will write these highlights not from the point of view of the President but from their own points of view, and I think it will be very helpful to everybody,” Belmonte said.

The Speaker raised the proposal about the report submission by Cabinet secretaries as he noted that the Aquino administration is very unusual in the sense that virtually all its Cabinet members, with the exception of one or two, have occupied their positions for the entire length of the Chief Executive’s administration.

“Therefore, they have a track record that they can be proud of. So, instead of the President making an annual report, I suggest that each secretary, now that he still has a few months in office, review his performance over the last six years and come out with a relatively comprehensive, though not bulky report, on the accomplishments of his department, what changes for the better were they able to do, problems that were encountered and also suggestions for the future. I think it will be a good thing,” Belmonte said.

The Speaker initially raised his proposal during the recent farewell courtesy visit of former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario on Belmonte wherein the outgoing Cabinet member thanked the House of Representatives for all the support and assistance it extended to him during his stint.

Del Rosario had endorsed the proposal, saying that “it is practicable and workable.”

“I think it is a good idea because you could condense that by taking from the annual reports submitted to the President on your accomplishments. Take the highlights, condense them, then consolidate them,” Del Rosario said.