Globe offers tech support for DSWD scheme

MANILA, Philippines - Globe Telecom, together with the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) and the National Computer Center (NCC) have join hands to provide the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and its donor partners with an alternative way of processing and giving monetary contributions via text messaging or the Internet.

A memorandum of agreement for the launch of the DSWD e-Donation Management System was signed on June 29  by Celia Capadocia-Yangco, then acting secretary and now undersecretary of DSWD; Angelo Timoteo Diaz de Rivera, CICT commissioner and NCC director-general; and Rizza Maniego-Eala, president of G-XChange, Inc, a fully-owned mobile commerce subsidiary of Globe.

Globe, CICT and NCC will work with DSWD on the improvement of its in-house basic system, requirements analysis, assessment of outsource solutions, and IT service support. They will also strengthen the ICT infrastructure, security and service support for the implementation and maintenance of the DSWD e-Donation system, provide capability building and change management activities for the system users and administrators, as well as handle marketing and promotion of the alternative ways of contributing and donating funds to the DSWD. 

“DSWD’s partnership with said companies will surely enhance our strategies in business procedures through the use of ICT.  Moreover, it is important that we keep up with modern technology to ensure that the Department continues to provide faster and better services to the sectors that we serve,” Yangco said.

Called the DSWD e-Donation Management System, the custom-designed turnkey solution aims to further maximize the potential of public donations as a major resourceto address the increasing demand for social protection program and services among the marginal sectors of society.

The system delivers, manages, and reconciles contributions and donations made through SMS and online transactions and works on a banking industry-standard security environment and a stable and scalable database system to ensure that all donations are properly recorded.

Once in place, DSWD will not only be able to receive donations via text and online but will also ensure safe and secure transmission of donations.

Online donations will be coursed through the NCC e-Bayad Internet-enabled payment portal while text donations will be made via GCASH. 

GCASH transforms a mobile phone into a wallet by allowing users to do money remittance, donations, loan settlement, disbursement of salaries or commissions, and payment of bills, products and services, with just a text message.

“We are adding another wonderful milestone to our donation system. 

Gone will be the painstaking hours of reconciling data, on long hand writing of sales and acknowledgments. Our stakeholders and donors are now given alternative ways of giving and processing contributions and donations through text or the Internet.

We know fully well that with this, we would make a lot of our disadvantaged population happy particularly those affected by calamities and drought,” Yangco said.

Wayne Belizar, DSWD director of Management Information Systems Service, said that they are in the process of completing the system configuration which entails the installation of the necessary systems and procedures to make a good donation system work at the soonest time possible.

“It is very important that this is supported by an email or online strategy so that the people will learn how and where they can make a donation via SMS or Internet. The objective is to introduce the donation system to our countless Internet users as an added option where they can conveniently exercise their good citizenship duties as Filipinos.  This is to move forward one step at a time in collaboration with our partners,” he said.