Taguig City Center

“ Architectural design strategies and development for transparency services and

transaction in City hall”

Description of the project

The economic progress of the city relies on the effectiveness of the local government in
fulfilling its responsibilities and duties as body of the national government in promoting the
general welfare of the people. The services offered in the local government in particularly in
City hall serve as starting point in order for the whole city to function. The illegal practice in
local government units affects the progress of the economy of the city. Red tape is one of the
most popular illegal practice of the government employees in relation to transaction of permits
and license to public and private sectors. Red tape is a result of the slow and inefficient
transactions and service in the local government agencies.
In 2008, The Anti-Red tape law is launched to stop this culture of government illegal practice.
The act aims to promote efficiency and transparency in government with regard to the
manner of transacting with the public by requiring each agency to simplify frontline service
procedures, formulate service standards to observe in every transaction and make known
these standards to the clients/citizens. (ARTA, 2008).
The transparency of the government in promoting general welfare of the people through
openness in information, documents and activities. Transparent government permits for the
distribution of information, which in resulted to help in producing greater knowledge, faster
transaction and societal progress for the citizen.

Projects / Case Rationale

Objectives
The proposal aim to improve the transaction and services at city hall to lessen the case of red
tape through developments of programmatic transparency in the architectural planning and
design strategies.
The improvement in the architectural planning and design of the City hall helps to improve the
transaction and efficiency services that may resulted to the avoidance of red tape in the
processing of business permits and licensing system.
There are hundreds of countries around the world competing for economic development.
Philippines as one of the developing countries around the world, the government plays a vital
role in promoting its global competitiveness through encouraging business sectors to start-up
in the country.
In 2000, the World Bank starts its study in the cities of the Philippines to find out efficiency of
the city hall processing of permits and licensing system. After four years of study, they launch
the “Doing Business 2004” in the Philippines in which it shows the ranking of the Philippines
in the world and Asia when it comes to starting a business in the country. It also shows the
indicator used for the study of the economic competitiveness of the country in terms of 1)
Starting a business 2.) Dealing with construction permits 3) Getting electricity 4) Registration
of property 5) Getting credit 6) Protecting investors 7) Paying taxes 8) Trading across borders
9) Enforcing contracts and 10) Resolving insolvency. Most of the indicators are influence by
the services offered in city hall. In 2006, they launched another toolkit for “Simplifying Business
permits and Licensing System” toolkit consist of step-by step assessments on the city hall
paper processing, forms for conducting surveys and studies, Recommended strategic solution
for the development of the services based of the results of the assessments and examples of
effective applications of the SBPLS on different cities in the Philippines. SBPLS toolkit focus
on the processing of business permit, construction permit and licensing permit which is the
main operation of the city hall is base. SBPLS concluded that there are four factors affecting
the services in city hall such as Architectural/Physical, Human, Technology and Financial.
Based on the toolkit the architectural planning and design of the local government agencies
affects the 3 remaining factors. The technological development affects the existing planning
and design of the city halls in the Philippines. The technological factors are another
maintenance and financial concern but in the long run the development of technology resulted
to improvement of transaction and services that enables the city hall to gain income and tax
revenues. The increase in financial factors help to solve the architectural problems and also
the human factors by improving the working space of the employee and also the development
of a space for public satisfaction. The improvement in the architectural, financial and
technological factors help to increase the satisfaction of the human factors that resulted to
less illegal practice inside the city hall.

Aside of the SBPLS, DTI, German Technical Cooperation and USAID launch the “Six good
practice” in 2006. It is the result of the study conducted in 16 LGU in the Philippines from
2001-2005, in which they apply possible solution and strategies in making the permits and
licensing in LGU become efficient. The six good practices are 1) Process improvement 2)
BOSS (Business One stop shop) 3) Computerization 4) Partnership and cooperation 5)
Information, education and communication and 6) Customer satisfaction.4 out of the six
factors influence the architectural planning and design strategies. Such as the BOSS
(Business One stop shop), Computerization, Information, education and communication and
Customer satisfaction.
From the results of the years of study in the factors that affects the economic growth of the
country the economist, financial sectors and researcher starts in encouraging cities to follow
this toolkit to attain through improvement of their architectural buildings.
According to Former President Gloria macapagal-arroyo good governance is equal to good
economy.
Taguig city booming economy is the result of its geographical location. The free open space
of the fort bonifacio set as good opportunity to expand the overcrowded Makati business
district. The fort bonifacio is strategically adjacent to the site and also the price of the land is
very cheap compare to other cities and the tax is very low. These factors turns to be an
opportunity for the business sectors to start-up building a new business hub in Metro.
According to Dr. Felixrobert Bustos Jr. The four factor indicator for economic business growth
are People, Location, Cost and Language; in which taguig city possessed it all. These
factors will help the city of taguig to be still one of the melting pot of development in metro.
The increasing demand of services to support the development of the business sectors
emerge the local government of taguig to improves its services and transactions in permits in
license.
In the 2014, national economic competitiveness ranking among the 34th highly urbanized city
in the Philippines. Taguig rank as the lowest because of its ranking in the economic indicator
index. Taguig is 19th when it comes to economic dynamism, 34th in the government efficiency
and 34th in infrastructure. Taguig city one of the promising cities in the Philippines. It’s one of
the youngest city in the national capital region yet it’s one of the top 10 tax income earner in
the Philippines as of 2009.
The result of the study emerge the local government of taguig most especially the city
hall of taguig to improves its services and transaction through the building of the new
city hall of Taguig. The construction of the new city hall is the solution to increasing
demand of services among the public and private sectors.

Project Practicability
The relocation of the new city hall is one of the line-up project of the city government of taguig.
The local government wants to have a modern city hall that will meet the needs of its
present and future constituents. The city hall will be part of the civic centre that will be
develop to improve the quality of services and activities for the people of taguig. The
combination of the civic centre and city hall will turn up to a “ City centre” in which it will be the
melting pot of public services and good relationship to government and the public.
There is allotted budget for the city hall in 2013 but because of the local election in that year
the proposal become obsolete.

Analysis of the situation

My research is about efficiency of permits and licensing system in LGU in relation to its
architectural planning will be applied to the material selection, design strategies,space
planning and distribution of departments of a city hall because base on the data collected. It
shows that customers satisfactory is higher in city hall in which the processing of papers are
just located in one building in which its more convenient and its more efficient in such a way
that all related departments and offices are close to each other. The communication among
related departments and offices improve the quality of service and time. The efficiency of the
transaction in the city hall is one of the provision of the anti-red tape. The illegal practice in
the LGU, will be avoided if there is an efficient services that will meet the satisfaction of the
people and efficiency can be achieve through the transparency of government in
delivering services.
The role that the city hall plays a huge role for moulding the economic development of the
city. This set to be the focal point of all the economic and social activity of the city. The
activities and services of the city influence the people. Through-out the year this create a
bond to the city soul. Creating a legacy and landmark for the city. This proves that city
hall is a representation of the infinite development, as long as the city undergo in
changes the character, services and transaction of the local government will be
affected.

The researcher come up with the idea of infinite cycle of benefits.

Four strategic factors is considered such as the architectural, technological, marketing

principles and the sustainable approach.

The architectural application is based on the result of the research study in which material
selection, design strategies,space planning and distribution of departments will be considered.
The technological factor is one of the provisions of the laws and toolkit in improving the
services in LGU, this technological factor will affect the typical strategic planning of city.
Nowadays, LGU transactions are transferred to malls because of the benefit of income and
profit for retailer. This concepts will be applied in the design strategy because of its benefit
that can help the maintenance of financial stability of the city hall. The sustainabale approach
is part of the laws and code implemented by the city council. City hall as the ceneter of the
jurisdiction must be a model of its own implementing rules and code. Besides, sustainable
approach can help the city hall in maintaining its building stability , saving nature and money
without depriving the financial stability of the local government.