Baguio shines in 2021 digital governance awards program

 CITY HALL BEAT

Aileen P. Refuerzo

BAGUIO CITY copped three first place awards in the 2021 Digital Governance Awards which gives recognition to the digital initiatives of local government units in the country.
     Mayor Benjamin Magalong received the “Best in Covid-19 Pandemic Response,” “Best in Government Internal Process” and “Best in LGU Empowerment” awards during the virtual ceremonies held Oct. 29.
    The city was recognized for its Baguio Inoculation Digital Application (BIDA) Covid-19 response program, the Electronic Budgeting, Procurement, Inventory and Monitoring System (eBPIMS) internal process and the Docutracker (LGU empowerment) system.
    The BIDA is a smart city strategy for ensuring that the city's vaccination process is safe and efficient. It intends to increase vaccination capacity, improve data integrity, and provide faster inoculation.
    The eBPIMS is used to prepare the plans for the City Annual Budget, Procurement, and Inventory Management, as well as the formulation of the Project Procurement Management Plan (PPMP), Annual Procurement Plan (APP), and Annual     Investment Plan (AIP). It can maintain a database, track the movement of each document throughout its life cycle, record document movement history information, and eliminate manual process bottlenecks, making the system more secure and streamlining work procedures.
    DocuTracker is an electronic document tracking system that improves communication and productivity by allowing users to retrieve documents online and follow its movement within the workplace. The system's job is to ensure that papers are rationally registered, preserved, and retrieved quickly facilitating more efficient work, reduction of office storage space paper consumption.
    These are projects of the Management Information Technology Division of the City Mayor’s Office in cooperation other departments like the City Treasury Office, City Assessor’s Office, City Health Services Office, among others.
    The city won awards in the previous staging of the awards program jointly being undertaken by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP) with the vision of integrating ICT capabilities and solutions to the different sectors of the society, to discover ICT potentials towards raising the bar in delivering public service and for local government units to be catalysts for change.
    Last year, the city placed third in the “Best in Covid-19 response” category for its Covid tracing system which comprises of an aggregate surveillance tracker, support package as well as an automated analytics device and was finalist in three e-GOV categories: the Baguio Visitor Information and Travel Assistance (V.I.S.I.T.A) for the Best in Customer Empowerment (G2C) Award which uses ICT solutions in engaging the public and in using electronic facilities and channels towards providing improved, timely and relevant delivery of public services.
    In 2019, the city bagged the “Best in eGOV Systems for Global Competitiveness” and in 2018, the city was third place in the “Best in eGov Customer Empowerment (G2C)” through the Online Public Assistance and Complaint Desk (PACD).
 Started in 2012 in honor of the late DILG Secretary Jesse Robredo, the awards program aims “to highlight and encourage the effective delivery of services by LGUs and to replicate their innovative practices to serve as example and benchmarks to other LGUs.”
    Magalong said the city will continue to use ICT in the delivery of services, document best practices to improve the business ecosystem, promote transparency and accountability in local governance and contribute to the digital transformation of the country.”