The Philippine Board of Investments (BOI) successfully passed the Compliance Stage of the Performance Governance System (PGS) during a Public Revalida at Bayanihan Center in Pasig City on Friday (June 10, 2016).  

BOI was also conferred the Silver Governance Trailblazer Award by the Institute for Solidarity in Asia (ISA) and Center for International Professional Experience (CIPE) for garnering a high score of 8.9 out of 10 during the Revalida having convincingly shown BOI’s embrace of the principles of good governance even at the individual level resulting in the agency’s reaping substantive early gains including its breakthrough goals such as the successful implementation of the Manufacturing Resurgence Program and the 4.11 percent increase in the share of the manufacturing sector to the total gross domestic product (GDP)..
 
Trade Undersecretary and BOI Managing Head Ceferino Rodolfo together with Assistant Secretary Fe Agoncillo-Reyes, and BOI Executive Directors Ma. Corazon Halili-Dichosa and Efren Leano presented the BOI’s PGS initiatives before a panel of governance experts headed by Rex Drilon of ISA, Fe Barin of the Institute of Corporate Directors, Greg Navarro of Navarro Amper & Company, Tomasa Lipana of Isla Lipana Foundation, and Peter Angelo Perfecto of Makati Business Club.


Trade Undersecretary and BOI Managing Head Ceferino Rodolfo explaining to the PGS Revalida panelists how the agency’s vision of becoming a Global Investment Promotion Agency by 2020 is aligned with its various industry and investment stakeholders.

 
The PGS is a strategic planning and management tool which allows agencies to be assessed objectively, and therefore foster transparency and accountability in the different levels of the organization. It has four stages that agencies have to accomplish: the Initiation Stage, where the Scorecard, Charter, and Roadmap are formulated; the Compliant Stage, where the agencies align their roadmap with various stakeholders by setting up a multi-sectoral governance coalition; the Proficient Stage, where implementation of the PGS is monitored and reviewed by Office of Strategy Management; and the Institutionalized Stage, where the results of PGS are translated into everyday operations of the agency.
 
“The initiative to implement a performance-based management system PGS is an organizational innovation that the BOI takes to heart. PGS, combined with our journey towards implementing quality management systems by subjecting the organization through the ISO 9001:2008 certification process, is part of our overall goal to better serve our stakeholders and efficiently exercise our mandate—further develop globally-competitive industries and promote the country as an investment destination of choice,” said Undersecretary Rodolfo.
 
The agency’s PGS voyage started in 2012 when the performance-based management system was first introduced by its mother agency—the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI). By laying out the foundations of governance within the organization, creating and committing to a transformation roadmap, governance scorecard, and portfolio of strategic initiatives together with our core values, mission, and vision within the organization, BOI successfully hurdled the Initiation Stage in October 2013.
 
“Moving on to Compliance, the BOI remained steadfast while challenged as it went through the rigors of implementing its Rationalization Plan. The reorganization triggered subsequent modifications to our scorecards and dashboards, toughly testing the capacities of our internal units,” Undersecretary Rodolfo said.
 
“With patience and determination, our scorecards and dashboards were thoroughly reviewed to the lowest individual dashboards. While the implementation is not yet perfect considering that it is still at its infancy in BOI, we are confident that we can successfully hurdle the challenges and be able to sustain and even enhance its implementation in the agency. We will continue to educate our people through our internal communication platforms as we implement a sustainable Communications Plan,” he said.
 
Undersecretary Rodolfo also said the agency’s Multi-Sector Governance Consultative Group, which has been convened last April 2016 and composed of the organization’s stakeholders from the business sector, academe, development organizations, media, and the ISA, will surely help in keeping BOI focused on achieving its targets and on the lookout for opportunities to further improve its systems and processes.
 
“Founded by our core values— integrity, passion for knowledge, excellence, and teamwork, we remain committed to implementing PGS, not solely as a system for measuring performance, but more so as a tool for organizational transformation in our pursuit to attain our vision to become a Global Investment Promotion Agency by 2020.  BOI has zero tolerance for corruption, encourages constant improvement, detests mediocrity, and values diversity,” said Undersecretary Rodolfo.