00:00Quickly, as you're saying, a lot of this stuff in terms of oversight are just now
00:06being put into place. And as you note, you personally brought this issue to the
00:11spotlight in your first zone address on it a couple years ago. But how much, if
00:17any, portion of the blame can go back to the administration, given that some of
00:22these funds flowed from what are called here, unprogrammed appropriations?
00:29Well, it depends on how you define the administration. Do you define the
00:34administration as everyone who belongs in government? I would define it here as the
00:41person who can make the decision on this amount of money that some critics would
00:46say is basically, you know, pork barrel spending. Sure. You just mentioned
00:50oversight. Many of these oversight measures were actually in place. They
00:56were just not being respected or used. And people would serve paper over these things.
01:04So we're bringing it back to where it should be anyway. Now, one of the focus
01:15points that we found that we had to deal with was the discretionary, the amount of
01:23discretion that is exercised by officials in government. And we noticed that that
01:30discretion has become, has gone to a much low, to a lower and lower, lower part of the
01:37administration until rank and file members are making decisions that are in
01:42the billions of pesos that are in fact, very gray area, if not absolutely and totally illegal.
01:50So that is one of the measures that we have put in is to remove that discretion. And the tool
01:57that we are
01:57using to remove that discretion, as much of that discretion as possible, because that's where the
02:03corruption comes in. If I, let us say, a functionary can make big decisions, then I can ask for money
02:13and say, I will decide it in your favor if you give me money.
02:17If you give me, or if we come to an arrangement where I profit or you profit or, you know,
02:22do something that is, that is
02:26disadvantageous, what the term is disadvantageous to the government. So digitalization is our, is our most powerful tool for that.
02:36Because we remove that human element where wastage, corruption can creep into. And that, I think, is the, what we
02:47consider to be the administration's responsibility in fixing those processes so that that discretion is not abused and is not
02:56exercised unnecessarily or, and again, not exercised in, not applied to illegal and to
03:06wasteful, uh, wasteful, uh, uh, uh, activities. And that, that's where I believe, uh, this administration has, uh, has focused.
03:13And that is what we are continuing to focus to make, again, the process safer and, uh, more equitable, uh,
03:21in terms of our, uh, in terms of our spending and, uh, the projects that we are undertaking.
03:26Thanks.
03:39You
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