President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Tuesday directed the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) to enable local government units (LGUs) to adapt to the e-Gov system as part of the government’s digitalization initiative.
Marcos issued the directive to Information and Communications Technology Secretary Ivan Uy during the sectoral meeting in Malacañang on DICT’s pending projects and cybersecurity concerns.
“Let’s capacitate our LGUs so they can adapt to the system,” the President told Uy.
Uy explained to the President that with the system, the local governments will actually save a lot of money and boost income generation.
“So medyo gagaan ‘yung ano natin downloading. Makakatipid ho sila dito. And their income generation capacity will increase tremendously because there will be efficiencies in the collection,” Uy said.
The President also directed during the meeting the conduct of regular upgrades. “So again it all boils down to that. That’s really the essence of digitalization. Let’s be sure that we are able to upgrade this system. Set it up to get them (LGUs) ready, so they know how to operate it,” he said.
The DICT announced in December last year the e-Gov system, which includes the e-Gov Super App, a platform aimed to ensure the digitalization of government systems in the Philippines, including LGUs.
Also part of government’s e-Government Priority Projects include: centralizing government cloud services; e-Report, for citizens’ feedback and complaints; and, e-Gov App which will integrate all government services into one platform.
The e-Gov Super App is set to be launched early next month.
Aside from the e-Government Priority Projects, DICT’s Priority Initiatives include the Broadband ng Masa, National Broadband Plan (NBP), Free Public Internet Access Program, National Government Data Center (NGDC), and Enhancing ICT competency through Upskilling and Reskilling.
In 2022, the Philippines ranked 71st out of 131 economies in the global Network Readiness Index, a significant jump from the 85th ranking in 2021 due to good performance on e-commerce legislation, high tech exports, and information and communication technology (ICT) services exports. (PND)
