ICT and FOI: Missing links in open governance

Last of five parts

THE last section of the Philippine Government Action Plan for open governance, Maximize Technology and Innovation, aims to use information and communications technology to enhance access to information about the public sector, especially its finances, policies, decisions, operations, and performance.

But ICT is only as good as the people and systems using it for enforcement, information and service delivery. Take the Bureau of Customs red-yellow-green system of classifying cargo based on risk of contraband. By properly channeling imports into appropriate lanes, BOC reduced the need for physical inspection, and the delays, discretion and devious dealings that bedevil it.

However, if corruption puts smugglers in the supposedly low-risk green lane, then the system ends up facilitating smuggling. Hence, in commenting on the final section of PGAP, we adopt the imperative for ethical use of technology: “ethicnology.”

Single Portal for Government Information. PGAP calls for an entire year to “craft a roadmap and develop a Single Portal for Government Information which complies with basic open data standards.” That sounds like an eternity just to set up a website with links to national government agencies (NGAs), local governments (LGUs), and state firms (GOCCs). How about getting the portal up by January, linking those NGAs, LGUs and GOCCs with websites, then bringing in others in phases until next September?

Government Integrated Financial Management Information System: GIFMIS is targeted for completion in 2016 — another slowpoke deadline. Like the government portal, GIFMIS should accelerate its phased implementation with sanctions against agencies that fail to meet deadlines. The data-sharing platform for financial oversight bodies like the Budget and Finance departments, and the Commission on Audit, should be up by June, not August. And most important: there should be public access to GIFMIS.

Electronic Bidding and Procurement: Next year new features would be developed for the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS), created under the 2003 e-Procurement Law. Among them: “a facility to enable the online submission of bid documents; a module for CSOs to monitor tenders online; an electronic fee payment system; an expanded supplier registry, and a module for agency posting of their annual procurement plans.” But DBM should still give top priority to getting more offices of NGAs, GOCCs, and LGUs as well as their suppliers using PhilGEPS.

National Justice Information System: NJIS is envisioned as “an integrated criminal justice database system that will facilitate the efficient recording, monitoring, tracking and reporting of crimes, cases, offenders and victims.” This effort should be done by a task force headed by the Supreme Court with the Department of Justice, the Philippine National Police, and the Integrated Bar of the Philippines as members. While we await NJIS, let us revive the Bantay-Sakdal task force to monitor and push major crime, corruption and security cases (see Sept. 26 column).

Government Manpower Information System and Central Payroll System: GMIS should be a joint project of the Civil Service Commission (CSC), the constitutionally mandated central personnel agency of the entire public sector, and DBM, which handles compensation policies and payroll disbursements. The targets of end-2012 for the National Payroll System pilot implementation, and 2014 for GMIS should be moved earlier, and again phased in by agency group. After all, these initiatives are building on existing databases and payroll systems. Unless this administration wants to repeat GSIS’s mistake of scrapping legacy systems and starting from scratch.

Registry of Farmers and Fisherfolk: The department that proposed this initiative (probably Agriculture) should ask Social Welfare about its National Household Targeting System, which mapped poor families nationwide in 2009-10, including farmers and fisherfolk. Since NHTS is being tweaked, DSWD can give special focus on DA’s concerns.

Electronic Transparency for Congressional Allocations and Lump Sum Funds: Harnessing ICT and CSOs to monitor PDAF outlays sounds good. Even better would be prosecuting a couple of congressmen, including art least one from the ruling party.

Interactive Fiscal Transparency: Next year the Budget ng Bayan website would give the public access and input into the planning and allocation of government funds. A far better system to ensure the people’s voice in state programs, operations and finances is the Gobyerno Alagad ng Bayan councils suggested in the first part of this article. Put the public face to face with officialdom: that’s harder to ignore than a computer screen.

More than plans and declarations, however, most crucial to open governance is the political will and commitment of the national leadership. And there is no better way to demonstrate the administration’s drive for openness in government than to pass the Freedom of Information Act.

Sadly, one crucial reform missing in PGAP is—you guessed it— the FOI law.

(The first four parts appeared on Sept. 23, 26, 28 and 30.) –RICARDO SALUDO, Manila Times

Ricardo Saludo, CSC chairman in 2008-09, heads the Center for Strategy, Enterprise & Intelligence, which publishes The CenSEI Report on global and national issues. For copies, email report@censeisolutions.com.