Gov’t web presence remains wanting

MANILA, Philippines–Several years after being mandated to set up websites, some government offices have yet to allow public to do transactions online, a National Computer Center (NCC) report showed.

The country follows the United Nations-American Society of Public Administration (UN-ASPA) standards, which is comprised of five stages.

According to the first quarter 2009 State of Web Presence of National Government Agencies (NGA), 13 out of 324 government officers are in stage-four, which allows public users to do secure payment for certain government services.

The report also said that 98 NGAs are in stage 3, which meant users could download and submit forms online. These websites would also have some basic chat systems.

Another 128 government websites were in stage two, while 48 are in stage one.

Under the UN-ASPA standards, stage one is a basic, static website that contains the agency’s background and services. Stage two websites are those with constantly updated news sections and some downloadable information.

In total, 287 national government agencies have web presence, and 37 agencies without their own websites.

The NCC report noted that the number of websites in stage three and four decreased slightly since some of the government websites have either been taken down and integrated with their parent websites or were under maintenance or being upgraded.

The NCC, which is under the Commission on Information and Communications Technology, is mandated to help government agencies—including state universities and colleges (SUCs)– build web presence.

In a separate report, a total of 60 out of 110 SUCs have web presence as of March. This figure, however, is lower than the 64 SUCs that have online presence in the previous quarter. –Alexander Villafania, INQUIRER.net