By Anna Valmero
PASAY CITY, METRO MANILA— The Department of Science and Technology (DoST) announced plans to put up “e-community” centers wherein people can transact with various government agencies using a single online portal.
DoST will implement this program through the ICT Office (ICTO), which replaced the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).
“We presented the priority areas of the ICTO office to President (Benigno) Aquino (III) namely the use of ICT on e-governance and an Internet-for-all policy, while providing support for the industry including the outsourcing sector,” said DoST chief Mario Montejo during the Expo Science 2011.
Montejo said DoST will put up 1,500 e-community centers in municipalities wher people can apply for birth certificates, police clearance, tax identification number and other documents.
The project will tap the National Computer Center in creating an online “government service” portal that will centralize processing of documents using a government-run data center.
At present, each government agency manages its own document processing on their respective websites, which often become problematic like in the case of the Social Security System (SSS).
“It's a very bold undertaking to take document processing down to the town or barangay level and it may take a few years but we are now starting talks with partner agencies for the project. Central to this project is how we will harmonize and make document processing interoperable,” said Montejo.
The e-governance project also aims to promote transparency in government financial information as agencies like the Department of Budget and Management, Department of Finance and Commission on Audit can use the portal to report performance metrics of government agencies, said Montejo.
