By the Computerworld Philippines Staff
September 1, 2007

It’s every government’s dream to provide fast and efficient service to citizens and foreigners through egovernance. And in the Philippines, agencies and local government units (LGUs) alike are aggressively pushing technology as the key to good government despite budget constraints and manpower problems.

At Computerworld Philippines’ 7th monthly CIO Roundtable, five tech-savvy civil servants passionately talked about their IT plans and the stumbling blocks they face in implementing hardware and software technologies. The participants also shared their dream egovernance project.

Participants of the roundtable were Councilor Donn Carlo Favis Marikina city; Angelo Timoteo M. Diaz de Rivera, director general of National Computer Center and Commissioner of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology; Merlina G. Panganiban, city government department head of Urban Development Department, Makati city; Alberto A. Pio de Roda, assistant commissioner, Bureau of Internal Revenue; and Elizabeth E. Yap, MIS director III of the Department of Public Works & Highways.

Following is an excerpt of the exclusive roundtable discussion held at the Regus and sponsored by HP Philippines.

CWP: When did the program to automate your agency’s processes and services begin? What were the reasons for this automation initiative?

Panganiban: Our computerization started with a database build-up on 1989. That time, the NCC wanted us to be the pilot site for the business permit and license system project. They were using the dBase program that time. So we started programming in 1989 and completely implemented it in 1992.

CWP: Three years? That long?

Panganiban: Yes, three years. That’s how long it takes in government. Anyway, when government started getting educated on IT, we were encouraged to innovate. So in 1994, we told ourselves that we just can’t computerize any process that we could think of. So we decided to prepare an information systems strategic plan with the help of Augusto Lagman’s group, which became our consultant. The plan was adopted by the council and approved by the National Computer Center. So we have a plan to follow when computerizing our systems.

CWP: Are you saying that Makati is one of the first to prepare for computerization?

Diaz de Rivera: I think so.

Panganiban: Because we started in 1989. However, it wasn’t really that integrated because our business permit and real property systems were running on separate databases. Also, we were only using dBase. So implementations started going full blast with the creation of the information systems strategic plan. We are using multi-tier architecture; we got a relational database management system which is Oracle 10G and our development tools are PowerBuilder, Delphi, and Java. We are gearing toward enterprise development and Internet-based transactions.

Why did we computerize? Because we saw that processes that can be executed quickly are being done slowly in government. We also observed that so many signatures are needed in one form, those kinds of things. We also wanted to increase our collection revenues as well as address graft and corruption. It’s difficult to eliminate graft and corruption, so our objective instead is to reduce it. We also wanted to reduce the volumes of paper. We wanted to innovate and not stagnate.

Favis: We actually started some form of computerization in 1999 but the project was scrapped. So in 2003, we changed it and ventured into Web-based applications using Oracle because we wanted to link them to our Website so that people can apply for a business permit and pay taxes online. That is what’s included in Marikina City’s computerization framework. We are venturing into GIS (geographical information systems) for the business permit and later on the real property system. The reason is we wanted paperless transactions. As much as possible, the steps a person has to go through are few and quick. So now, when you apply for a business permit, we will give you your permit right away and then we’ll do the inspection based on the declarations you made.

CWP: So that encourages a lot of people to put up a business?

Favis: Yes.

CWP: What if upon inspection you find out that what they declared is not true?

Favis: They’ll pay.

Panganiban: On our part, when you apply without the requirements, we will give you a temporary permit. We’ll give you a permanent permit once you comply with all the requirements within 90 days.

Yap: Computerization in the then Department of Public Works, Transportation and Communications (DPWTC) started in 1977 with the establishment of the Infrastructure Computer Center (ICC) to improve decision-making and operational efficiency. We were using UNIVAC mainframes. We practically computerized all areas in the department at that time, and then in 1988, we converted to standalone PCs because maintaining mainframe machines was too costly. So we had standalone PCs until around 1997.

Then in 1997, under the Highway Management Program, the Government of the Philippines obtained financing from the World Bank for road works and institutional development. Included in the institutional development is the provision of consulting services and equipment procurement for the development and implementation of a modern and comprehensive road information and management support system in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

The overall objective of this project is to improve the quality and delivery of DPWH services in the provision and management of the road system. The project modernized the IT infrastructure of the DPWH as the approach used is to enhance the processes utilizing the principles of business process reengineering and enabling these improved processes with the use of information technology.

Pio de Roda: I think BIR started early 1970s because at that time I was with NCC and I was assigned there to do some programs for BIR. At that time they were using the IBM 370 mainframes and then upgraded to the 4800 series. When I joined BIR, Sun Microsystems already won the contract for the development of the integrated tax system.

BIR is practically a big organization. It has about 12,000 employees nationwide and it collects about 80% of total government revenues. So they have no choice but to automate. Basically, the target with computerization is to improve revenue. That was the top objective. Of course other reasons are to minimize corruption, improve administration, and monitoring administration in terms of cost and process. We now make forms available online for printing. We’ve also made it easier for tax payers to prepare income tax returns. We wanted to improve access to information. That’s one reason we put up our Website.

Computerization has resulted in a lot of advantages for us. We have been able to match the sales and purchase records of large tax payers. The first time we did it was in 2002. Of course the business sector complained to President Gloria Arroyo that BIR is harassing them. The advantage of automation is that it’s the computer that processes everything. That’s why we secure the system. So you can’t blame the BIR people.

In 1994, we went serious with a $65 million loan from the World Bank. In five years, about $48 million dollars was spent on hardware, civil development, licenses, etc. From then on, improvements in the system became constant.

However, we encountered a problem with a contractor. It did not perform so we had to cancel the contract last December. We cannot re-bid because the supplier will get a temporary restraining order (TRO). So the other option is to look for an existing tax application system which we can customize based on our requirements.

CWP: Which country’s tax system are you looking at?

Pio de Roda: We are looking at Spain and Australia. We are still evaluating at this stage. We also want to look at the Korean tax system. After Andersen Consulting developed our integrated tax system, they were hired by the Koreans to develop their own system and called it Tax Integrated System. Almost the same functionality as our ITS, except that ours hibernated for three years while they continued improving their system. It’s practically what we really want now. But it’s still being evaluated.

Diaz de Rivera: NCC is a very, very small agency. There is no micro-station system. There are very few applications to automate. We have networked PCs in the laboratories for training purposes. We haven’t even automated our accounting system yet. We are working with the Commission on Audit (COA) to use their system, but we are also looking at some other options for accounting. Our budget is very small so we’ve been able to cope even without the automated accounting system. But some aspects of the payroll are automated.

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