DIGITAL GOVERNMENT FORMS

DIGITAL GOVERNMENT FORMS Dear Mr. President: As a former Director General of the National Computer Center, the precursor of the Department of Information and Communications (DICT), I know how difficult it is for National Government Agencies (NGAs) and Local Government Units (LGUs) to comply with your instructions to digitalize their ICT systems to make it user friendly, in line with the goal of the government to promote the “ease of doing business”. I know of many ways to comply with your instructions, but for now, for the purpose of this letter, I will only mention two suggestions, just to get the ball rolling. My first suggestion is to start by digitizing all government forms, and my second suggestion is to avail of low-cost, subscription only software products and services, to avoid the long and tedious procurement processes. There are many online forms service providers now, some are for free, while others are for pay but they only charge affordable subscription plans. Google Forms is one such service, and the basic plan is for free. And why am I recommending the use of online forms? The answer is very simple. Once the forms are filled-up, we can already forward those to the concerned agencies for processing. That saves the trouble of applicants travelling and going to government agencies to do the same thing, to fill-up forms. Accepting forms that are already filled-up is the best thing that the government agencies could do, because right now, they are unable to process the services online anyway. According to the procurement law, all tenders with costs that are above one million should go through public bidding. Based on my own experience, that is a long and tedious process that could even take many months, and maybe even a few years. An the higher the procurement budgets become, the more it becomes more prone to corruption. The other problem is failed biddings could cause more delays because the process must start all over again. Buying subscriptions only is already a stable and accepted practice for personal and corporate use, including the use for government agencies. For example, my accounts for Zoom, Netflix, LinkedIn and Microsoft are all annual subscriptions that were purchased online with no hassle at all. Under the procurement law, proprietary software could not be subjected to public bidding, because in theory, they would have no competitors because they have unique Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs). Couple that with the fact that since their annual subscription rates are below one million, then they are really exempted from bidding. Mr. President, as of now, I know of several software products and services for the use of NGAs and LGUs that are already available on a subscription basis. Among these are the usual systems for accounting, human resources, property management and inventory control, but there are also software options that are available for more advanced needs such as disaster management, telemedicine and electronic commerce. Let me know if you are looking. IKE SENERES/09-19-24