Automation for good governance

NO HOLDS BARRED
Ike Señeres

MANILA -- I wrote a series of eight articles about Commission on Elections automation. If you are interested in these articles, please visit my blog. There has been a tremendous interest about this subject. I was interviewed in several radio and television stations about this topic, and we discussed this extensively in the GNN coverage of the elections. However, I feel that this subject has been exhausted, and therefore I am putting it to rest, at least for now.

I would like to thank everyone who supported the National Council for Commuter Protection (NCCP) in its bid to elect nominees to the Congress. The counting is still going on, so there are no final results yet. No matter what happens, the NCCP is committed to continue with its advocacy of promoting commuter rights, including the rights to commuter safety.

I also would like to congratulate Our Barangay Inc, (OBI) for its first successful project of connecting a barangay in Iloilo . In the midst of the fanfare about politics, it is remarkable how OBI led by Ms. Elsa Bayani has kept its focus on the more meaningful goal of bringing automation to the lowest unit of governance. I know that Elsa is just starting, and she is yet to do more not only for Iloilo , but also for the rest of the country.

In another development, I also would like to congratulate Councilor Junjun Binay for winning the mayoralty race of Makati City . As of press time, his father Mayor Jojo Binay is leading the race for the Vice Presidency, and I congratulate him too for a superb campaign that put him on top of the election results so far.

Just like his father who initiated many moves to improve governance in Makati City , I am sure that Mayor Junjun will continue the tradition of using technology to bring quality basic services to the people of his city. Unknown to many, Junjun is a graduate of a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, so expect him to introduce many innovations in his field of expertise. With the blessings of Mayor Jojo, the Makati City ICT Council (MCICTC) which I chair will now move on to the take on new challenges under a new administration. Congratulations as well to Cong. Abby Binay for her winning her second term.

Thanks to the massive attention that was given to the COMELEC project, many people are now aware of the importance of automation for the delivery of public services. As I did my role of informing the public about the technical details about the said project, I am now focusing my attention on yet another concern that is equally important for the good of the people, and that is the automation of early warning systems for climate change and global warming.

Perhaps it is really part of our culture to be excited about certain public issues at one time, and then just forget about it as time passes. This is apparently what has happened to our preparations for future disasters that are associated with environmental threats. Since I have access to several good technologies that the public could use for this purpose, I feel that it is my duty to help where I can, when I could.

Based on my experience, local government units (LGUs) would usually cite two reasons for not installing early warning systems and these are the lack of money, and the lack of technical resource persons. I am now removing these obstacles for them, so that they could install these systems without so much difficulty.

As far as money is concerned, the early warning systems could be funded by the Internal Revenue Allocations (IRA), the Countryside Development Fund (CDF) and through the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) scheme. If these three options are not available, investors or donors could be found.

As far as technical resource persons are concerned, I have already lined up a number of experts who could help them on a voluntary basis. Most of these experts are locally based, but if necessary, we could gain access to foreign based experts. This would not be difficult to do, since I have been doing this kind of work ever since.

My offer to help is good for all LGUs, from the barangay level to the provincial level. All I ask is for them to be willing, able and ready, and I have given this the acronym of WAR, way back from my DFA days.

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