National Printing Office


National Printing Office is one of 3 Recognized Government Printers in the Philippines. It was first established in 1901 as the Philippine Bureau of Printing. It is an instrumentality of the Government entrusted with the tasks of printing and binding routine Government publications, public documents, the Official Gazette, and other official forms.

History

On 7 November 1901, the Philippine Commission enacted Act No. 296 to create the Bureau of Printing as the pioneer of the Philippine printing industry. Throughout its history, the Bureau has been placed under different government offices. It was initially under the Department of Public Instruction until 1918, when it was placed under the Department of Finance. In 1947, it was transferred to the Office of the President and nine years later in 1958, it was placed under the Department of General Services.
In 1986, under the presidency of Corazon Aquino through the virtue of Executive Order No. 285, the Bureau was merged with the printing unit of the Philippine Information Agency to form the National Printing Office. Through the same order, it was placed under the Office of the Press Secretary, which is today known as the Presidential Communications Operations Office and under which the NPO remains today.
The first Director of the Bureau of Printing was John Sylvannus Leech. Under his term, the Apprenticeship System was adopted in the Bureau to train future printers in the agency's operations. Among the apprentices who benefited from this program was Pablo Lucas, who went on to be the first Filipino Director of Printing.

Functions

The NPO has printing jurisdiction over the:
Together with other recognized government printers, the NPO is tasked with the printing of Accountable Forms and Sensitive High Quality/Volume requirements of the government. Besides the other jobs listed above, the NPO may also accept other government printing jobs, including government publications. However, these are engaged in a non-exclusive basis.

Officials

The NPO is currently headed by Director Francisco V. Vales, Jr. He leads the following officials: