REVENUE MEMORANDUM CIRCULAR NO. 129-2019 issued on November 29, 2019 publishes the full text of Government Quality Management Committee (GQMC) Memorandum Circular No. 2019-1 entitled “Guidelines in the Validation of the ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System (QMS) Certification/Recertification as a Support to Operations (STO) Requirement for the Grant of the FY 2019 Performance-Based Bonus (PBB)”.

Only a valid ISO 9001:2015 Quality Management System (QMS) certification/recertification is considered as compliance to the certification requirement for the
grant of the 2019 PBB.
In addition, certifications/registrations/awards to similar standards relating to Total Quality Management (TQM), e.g., Philippine Quality Award, ISO/IEC 17025 or 17020 Accreditation, Accreditation Canada International’s Qmentum International Gold Award, Universal Postal Union’s Quality Management Certification, and Accrediting Agency of Chartered Colleges and Universities in the Philippines, Inc. (AACCUP)’s Institutional Accreditation, could be considered.

The ISO 9001:2015 QMS and TQM certifications/recertifications, as indicated in the certificate, must be valid as of December 31, 2019. Certifications/recertifications with an effectivity date starting January 1, 2020 onwards shall not be considered as compliance with said requirement for the FY 2019 PBB cycle.

The scope of the QMS indicated in the agency’s ISO 9001 certificate shall cover at least one (1) core process or frontline service as mandated under its existing pertinent laws. For frontline agencies, the core process pertains to an agency service most demanded by citizens and business and targeted for improvement.

The ISO 9001:2015 QMS Certifications must be issued by any of the Certification Bodies (CBs) accredited by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) member.
Agencies shall prefer CBs which are duly accredited by the Philippine Accreditation Bureau under the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to certify their ISO QMS. The CBs contracted shall have been accredited to audit and certify QMS for specified scope, particularly under ISO 9001 QMS for IAF 36 – Public Administration, IAF 37 – Education, IAF 38 – Health and Social Work, among other areas or scope.

Letters of attestation issued by CBs indicating that certification/recertification audits have been completed but subject to approval of their Certificate Decision Maker will not be considered as fulfilling the ISO QMS requirements based on the AO No. 25 IATF MC No. 2019-1.

All agency ISO 9001 QMS certification(s)/recertification(s) must be posted in its Transparency Seal (TS) webpage not later than December 31, 2019.
While the ISO 9001:2015 certificate/recertification is among the TS documents to be posted in the agency TS as one of the GGC requirements, whose deadline of updating by the agencies is on October 1, 2019, the deadline of uploading the ISO certificate/recertification to the agency TS as a requirement for STO Target shall not be later than December 31, 2019.

A certified true copy of the agency’s ISO QMS certificate(s) shall be submitted to the GQMC, through the DBM Secretariat (Systems and Productivity Improvement Bureau or SPIB), immediately after obtaining an ISO QMS certificate not later than December 31, 2019, for verification purposes.

The GQMC – DBM Secretariat (SPIB) shall submit to the AO No. 25 IATF not later than January 31, 2019 its findings on the compliance of agencies with the ISO QMS-related requirement to serve as basis for determining their eligibility to the FY 2019 PBB grant.

Officials and employees responsible for the implementation of the QMS certification shall not be entitled to the FY 2019 PBB if the department/agency fails to comply with the ISO 9001:2015 QMS certification requirement.