"I think it's too early to say that it failed. We do have success stories, like the eLGU project of the National Computer Center, the electronic library project of several government agencies, the community e-center of the CICT, and the Anti-Money Laundering project," said Virgilio Peña, CICT chairman, about Roxas’s statements in the Senate oversight committee hearing on e-commerce. Most of these projects got funding from the CICT through the four-billion peso e-government fund allocated by the Department of Budget and Management in 2003. About a billion pesos were set aside for e-government projects this year, with another billion allotted for 2006, according to the oversight committee report on the E-commerce Law.
The e-government fund was created to finance high-impact and mission-critical ICT projects of government agencies, subject to the approval of the now defunct Information Technology and E-commerce Council.
The CICT, formed in 2004, was later given the task to manage the e-government fund. At least 26 agencies implementing 30 ICT projects have availed of the e-government fund.
According to the oversight committee report, about 3.7 billion pesos were released in 2003 for 23 agencies covering 26 projects. This year, about 221.8 million pesos were allotted were released to four agencies.
"I wouldn't say they were a failure. There has been no project endorsed for e-government funding that has failed, except the Comelec modernization," Peña said.
Roxas had expressed disappointment over the implementation of the E-Commerce Law five years after its implementation and four billion pesos allotted to the CICT.
"The inter-operability feature [of government] as it stands right now is still 'aspirational.' It is still a hope rather than a reality – that is one of the challenges [that] e-commerce, as [it] relates to government and its relationship to the business sector, will have to face. Each agency, pretty much, is allowed to go and undertake its own IT or e-Commerce plan but oftentimes it's not synchronized or coordinated with a grand plan or a coherent plan," Roxas said.
The senator stressed that most government agencies find themselves with computers and data that cannot be interconnected. "The Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), for instance, has difficulty using the Bureau of Customs (BoC) data because it still has to be converted into usable form by the BIR computer system.
"So when the BIR checks the cost of goods sold of a company, it will have difficulty relating importation of the same company. That is a practical sort of example.
"We [in] the e-commerce oversight committee were disappointed to find out that this was the true stage of e-commerce in the country. It has been five years since this law has been passed under the CICT they spent or allocated about P4B and yet we are still here. We spent bits and pieces on various projects, I am sure they are all very worthwhile, but there doesn't seem to by any coherence and so therefore after all these years and money only one, the BIR, has nearly completed [its projects] and BoC is also pretty much along the way but the rest are still very far away," the senator continued.
The Department of Trade Industry was mandated to implement the e-commerce law (Republic Act 8792). But under executive order 269 issued on January 2004, the CICT was put in charge of the e-government strategy and plan, making CICT the overall implementing arm.
"CICT plays a major role in the implementation of e-commerce law based on the context of the provisions of the [e-commerce] law, although we're not mandated. This is our own interpretation based on the executive order creating the CICT," admitted Peña.
The e-commerce law was passed in 2000 but the CICT was created only in 2004. It is currently under the Office of the President.
The goal of CICT's e-government plan is to encourage interoperability among government agencies, but this requires identification of government services and processes, Peña said.
"We do have a government strategy in place. This serves as the framework for endorsing e-government projects. But we're encouraging connectivity of various agencies as we endorse funding to ICT projects," he added.
Peña was less harsh on Philippine government agencies, saying it is indeed a challenge to force government agencies to interoperate. "It is a question [of] which business processes of government will need to interoperate. So unless this is part of the Government Information System Plan of an agency, we cannot force them to interoperate. But we give incentives to agencies who propose to interoperate," the CICT chief said.
One of government’s biggest hurdles in ICT project implementation is managing complex e-government projects. "We still need to develop skills within public sector, so we're encouraging governments to outsource ICT projects," Peña said.
The e-commerce law mandates government agencies to engage in e-commerce within two years or before June 19, 2002 but the majority of them have failed to do so.
It also requires the implementation of the RPWeb, a project aimed at interconnecting all government offices to the Internet and providing universal access to the general public. The same grand plan is contained in a measure creating the proposed Department of ICT now pending in Congress.
Meanwhile, Congress’ oversight committee on e-commerce recommended more transparent reporting on the progress of various e-government projects.
The National Computer Center and the Department of Budget and Management, it said, have not indicated the duration, cost, actual status of ICT projects, and project completion dates. The committee also pointed out that the 2005 e-government funds were released for projects not originally endorsed.
It took note as well of failed e-government projects, including the Commission on Elections and the 800 million pesos it received from the e-government fund.
The oversight committee also wanted to know whatever happened to the National Crime Information System, to which 1.2 billion pesos was allocated in 2000.
Autor: Erwin Lemuel Oliva
Quelle: INQ7, 31.08.2005
