Mindanao officials visit San Rem

CEBU, Philippines - Much as they want to adopt the Community eCenter (CeC) of San Remigio, Cebu in their localities, officials from various municipalities in Mindanao are apprehensive that it would remain as a dream.

Leaders of 19 towns in five regions in Mindanao accompanied by personnel of the National Computer Center (NCC) regional offices visited the CeC of San Remigio town recently.

The study visit allowed other local government units (LGUs) to observe the best practices in Information and Communication Technology through the CeC of San Remigio. However, Vice Mayor Abduhamid Umpa Amerbitur of Madamba town in Lanao del Sur lamented in being one of the less fortunate LGUs in Mindanao because of their location which is extremely far from the urban center.

He even compared their LGU to a 3-storey building in which the first storey is the highway, the second is the barangay road and the third is the municipal building.

“As far as the ICT/NCC is concerned, it is hard for us to avail of the so-called Information Technology because the communication service providers are not interested to put up their facilities because of the peace and order situation,” the vice mayor said.

He appreciated San Remigio’s practices in IT because of the whole-hearted support of the local government. He asked the NCC staff to help them on this problem, hoping to avail of what San Remigio acquired.

Ma. Luisa Clapano, of Vincenzo A. Sagun, Zamboanga del Sur, also shared their IT innovation she called as non-voice call center. It’s a process of data encoding using the internet equivalent to a call center wherein the CeC can generate local employment.

San Remigio Mayor Jay Olivar welcomed the visitors and emphasized the importance of ICT in his town’s vision to be a model LGU in the entire Province and the whole country.

Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator Engr. Romarico Cabellon and CeC Manager Jeffrey LLanto of Central Visayas Information Sharing Network (CVISNET) made a presentation of the connectivity solution in rural areas which enlightened the visitors to avail of the technology. They were joined by Elmer Gomez, the Regional IT Chairman of NCC in Central Visayas. 

The visitors were from Regions 10, 11, 12 and 13. (FREEMAN)