IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

BY 2030 or ten years from now, each country will have to reckon how they have supported the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030, which was universally set and designed as a "blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all by 2030."

These next 10 years or the current decade has been tagged as a Decade of Action remaining to achieve the SDGs – the shared vision of all countries to end poverty and build a peaceful, sustainable world for all people, an ambitious decade aimed at mobilizing governments, civil society, and businesses, and citizens to take action and drive the goals to reality. A key ingredient considered is ensuring that governments around the world transform digitally and digital government transformation has a crucial role in delivering sustainable, inclusive and equitable services to everyone everywhere – leaving no one behind.

Baguio City will serve as the partner-city of Asian Institute of Management's Minerva Project, which aims to create a smart city model.

Minerva stands for monitoring of indicators for efficient redevelopment and value assessment.

During the project's virtual launching on Tuesday, Minerva project leader Christopher Monterola said the country's summer capital will serve as the test bed and first adopter of the technology they will develop.

As the ongoing pandemic accelerates innovation, Baguio City pushes forward with its goal of building the first Smart City in the country. After several investments in technology for digital governance, crowd density monitoring, and real-time weather prediction, City Mayor Benjamin Magalong enlisted the expertise of Cisco in creating the Integrated Command and Control Center.

“I envision Baguio as a SMART City where various types of electronic methods are used to manage the Summer Capital’s assets, resources and to provide even more efficient and effective services to the public,” said Mayor Magalong. “I am confident that Cisco’s participation will help the city realize its goal of digital governance where residents can engage in “contact-less” transactions with the government and much more. Less “contacts” will also help to decrease the spread of the COVID-19 infection.”

As part of its Smart City and full digital transformation initiatives, the city government led by Mayor Benjamin Magalong launched the free public Wi-Fi on March 26 at the Baguio public market, which intends to strengthen the digitalization of transactions, trade, and communications in and out of the area.

"This is a momentous occasion for our beloved city as it marks a significant step forward in our efforts to build a more connected and digitally empowered community," Magalong said about the project that the city has been working on in partnership with Project Lightning of the National Transmission Corp. and in collaboration with Benguet Electric Cooperative.

The city government needs to pool in a total amount of P5 billion to be able to fully transform its smart city vision into reality, according to Executive Assistant Philip Puzon.

Puzon said Mayor Benjamin Magalong is planning to solicit financial support from the national government and other external sources to meet the funding requirements for the full operation of the Smart City Command Center.

Benguet Electric Cooperative (Beneco) expressed support on the planned conduct of a public bidding for the maintenance, operation and upgrading of its street lights under the Smart City lighting project of Baguio City.

Beneco general manager Gerardo Versoza, in his communication to Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong, requested for the city to forward to Beneco the approved terms of reference (TOR) for the project for the cooperative to have time to study and come up with a final position.

In this way, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) will be able to reduce, if not eliminate, cheating of poll results because of the existence of double or multiple registrants, said Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, chairman of the committee on electoral reforms and people’s participation.

Under Senate Bill 1030 of Senator Lito Lapid, photographs, fingerprints, signature, and other identifiable features, will be stored by the data capturing machine of the automated election system that has been adopted by the Comelec.

Also known as House Bill (HB) 6336, Telehealth Act of 2012 aims to strengthen Health Secretary Enrique Ona’s commitment to provide telehealth services to at least 606 poorest municipalities in the Philippines.

The bill “would benefit patients and medical professionals who can now use Internet technology to tap medical expertise,” Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya, the bill’s author, said in a press statement.

Lawyer Rey Sumalipao, ARMM election regional director, said all Comelec municipal offices are open for registration five days a week, from Sundays to Thursdays, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Sumalipao, who was implicated in the 2004 Hello Garci recordings that implied massive cheating in behalf of former President Gloria Arroyo against Philippine actor Fernando Poe Jr., said the registration period started May 6 and ends October 31, 2015.

“Next week, I will move for the ratification of the report by the Senate and hopefully within the year it will be signed into law,” Senator Aquilino “Koko” Martin d. L. Pimentel III, electoral reforms and people’s participation committee chairman, yesterday said in an interview after the joint chamber meeting.

Mr. Pimentel said Rep. Elpidio F. Barzaga, Jr., (Dasmariñas City), suffrage and electoral reforms committee chairman, will also move for ratification of the reconciled version at the House of Representatives next week.

House Bill 3469, principally authored by Tarlac Rep. Susan Yap, which was passed on third and final reading seeks to ensure the integrity of any electoral exercises, be it election, plebiscite or referenda.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) will serve as the implementing arm of the measure. It is tasked to come up with a single, official, centralized, interactive computerized voter registration list “in a uniform and nondiscriminatory manner.”

About 8 million Filipinos out of the close to 50 million registered voters have no biometric records with the Comelec, but they can still vote in the upcoming May 13 polls.

Biometrics refer to the picture, fingerprints and signature of a voter recorded by a computer during the registration period. The system supposedly helps the Comelec in purging the final list of multiple registrants.

As more and more people open social media accounts, personal identity has gone digital; which means it has become more mobile. But with this ongoing trend comes the sinister underworld full of digital fraudulent schemes, cyberhacks, account take-over attacks and identity thefts, which can leave not just the users but also the government, regulators and businesses, vulnerable if these concerns are not addressed properly.

Called the E-lounge, the facility is an electronic public room equipped with internet-enabled computers, similar to commercial internet cafés, where taxpayers can access BIR’s e-services free of charge.

The E-lounge kiosk was put up at the BIR’s district office here, which is one of 40 district offices provided with internet facilities.

Aligned with its Digital Transformation (DX) Program, the Bureau of Internal Revenue launched its people-centric campaign titled Taxpayer FIRST—Fast, Innovative, Reliable, Secure, and Technology-driven developments for better taxpayer services during the virtual event held via Zoom and Facebook live last December 10, 2021.

In collaboration with banking institutions and long-time development partner, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the BIR officially announced during the said event its wider and better electronic payment (ePayment) channels accessible to taxpayers 24/7.

The City of Bogo is about to become the first “Smart City” in the Visayas as it begins to lay the infrastructure foundation for a 50-kilometer fiber optic network Bogo IT-Department head and pres­ident of Bogo ICT Council Roger Tona­cao told a news forum here Wednesday that phase I of the ICT connectivity project has started.

The network will connect all baran­gays, schools, government facilities and private service utilities in the city.

Bohol ICT Council President Leah Tirol-Magno is confident that summit delegates would see Bohol as the perfect Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) location and something like General Santos City is going to happen here.

The Summit is a way of showcasing to the whole world how ready we are to adopt BPO/ICT, Magno added.

The solon reiterated this advocacy during the inauguration of three two-classroom school buildings in Talibon town last week.

He said the Aquino administration and Congress are moving in the same direction by providing about P138 billion for the Department of Education (DepEd) in the 2012 national budget.

Sen. Christopher Lawrence “Bong” Go has raised the need to prioritize digitalization of public service delivery as he renewed his call for the passage of the E-Governance Bill.

“We need e-governance to provide our people with the services they need from the comfort of their homes or workplaces,” he told the country’s economic managers during a briefing conducted by the Development Budget Coordination Council last week.

The call of Sen. Bong Go to government departments and agencies to avail of new information and communication technologies is not only part of the solution to mitigate the spread of the new coronavirus but will curb corruption in the government bureaucracy. The other ultimate advantage is efficiency in government service.

Information technology had been with us but sadly you can count on your left-hand fingers the number of government agencies that migrated their systems from the traditional person-to-person to no-contact transactions.