Palace imposes measures vs. overseas trips by gov’t workers in executive dep’t

President Rodrigo Duterte has made good on his promise to keep an eye on the executive branch’s foreign trips.

Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea on Wednesday released a memorandum on directives for government officials and personnel in the executive department when applying for overseas travels. 

The memorandum specified three minimum criteria for foreign travels:

• the purpose of the trip is strictly within the mandate of the requesting government official or personnel
• the projected expenses for the trip are not excessive
• the trip is expected to bring substantial benefit to the country

It also reminded that the government official or personnel will not be allowed to depart for any travel abroad without the appropriate authorization from the agency concerned, even for a personal trip.

Meanwhile, agency heads authorized to approve travels abroad are required to submit to the Office of the President a list of all travel authorities issued at the end of every quarter. The list must include pertinent details of the overseas trips.

The chiefs are also told to require their subordinates to submit reports on the conferences or seminars attended, examinations or investigations conducted, or missions they joined overseas within 30 days after their return.

For Filipino delegations that will represent the country at international conferences or conventions, they are also required to submit a report to the Foreign Affairs Secretary 30 days after the closing of the event.

“Failure to comply with the above directives may result in the filing of administrative actions for misconduct, insubordination and other related offenses wider the Civil Service Commission Revised Rules on Administrative Cases in the Civil Service and/or relevant laws, rules and regulations against the travelling official/personnel, as well as the official who unduly endorsed or approved his/her travel authority or who failed to submit the list required, herein,” Medialdea wrote.

ES Medialdea releases memorandum on directives applying to foreign travels of all govt officials, personnel in the Executive dept pic.twitter.com/z9BiWlZP2M

— Trisha Macas (@trishamacas) January 3, 2018

The memorandum came a few days after Duterte announced that he would cut down the executive department workers' overseas travel.

He earlier sacked former Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor chairperson Terry Ridon over junkets. — MDM, GMA News