CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Government won two awards in the E-Gov Awards of the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
The city bagged the first place with a winning entry "Cebu Traffic" for Government to Business (G to B) category and third place for its "Fix my barangay" for the Government to Customer (G to C) award.
For two consecutive years, the city topped the Government to Business award.
With this, Mayor Michael Rama said the awards are proofs that the city is not "bankrupt."
"The city will never become bankrupt for as long taxes will be paid. Any LGU (would) replenish itself. If there are going to be Business permit, IRA, real property taxes, Pagcor, PCSO and all that would be coming in, there is always money," he said.
The G to C awardees were San Fernando, La Union (Document Tracking system); Province of Leyte (Advanced and basic software programming for High School Students); Legaspi City (Log administration system) and Cebu City (fix my barangay).
The G to B winners were Cebu City (Cebu Traffic); San Simon Pampanga (itax collection); and Quezon City (point of sale taxation).
The awards were given on December 20 at the national office of DILG.
The criteria were 25 percent innovation, 25 percent sustainability, 25 percent relevance to the problems and 25 percent replicability.
Lawyer Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, chairperson of E-gov Awards and founding president of Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for IT benefit (counterpart of Cebu Educational Foundation for IT), personally gave the awards to Rama yesterday.
Barangays Bario Luz and Basak San Nicolas were piloted for the "Fix my barangay" program.
The program is a web-based system in which taxpayers and clients have avenue to address their concerns in their respective barangays to the appropriate agencies and departments.
E-gov Awards, now on its second year, is banking on the objective of "championing Information Communication Technology (ICT) development and good governance in the country side."
There are at least 40 ICT councils in the Philippines.
Sigue said they tapped the DILG to be able to recognize LGUs in promoting good governance and elevating the welfare of the public through information communication technology.
"We support the campaign of DILG, to create an incentives and recognition program for LGU that integrate ICT that to produce good governance particularly in two catergories government to business to improve business ecosytem how they create a productive business environment for their local governments and stakeholders," Sigue said.
Sique said if other LGU wants to win, they shouldn't be thinking of how much the program costs but rather of progress it may bring to the community and the constituents.
"They think automation, computerization, or integration of ICT is costly. It is not about the hardware, it is all about the ingenuity and the wisdom of people behind us. It is the program itself. It's all about innovation, sustainability, relevance and replicability," Sique explained.
City Traffic Operations Management (Citom) chief Rafael Yap, who submitted the "Cebu Traffic" entry, assured that the program will be emulated for sustainable traffic flows.
"We were grateful for E-gov Awards for recognizing our two years effort. This is a culmination of lot of work, sweat and tears. We hope more honor and less traffic to Cebu City in the future," Yap said.
"Let's cherish and let's feel the recognition," Rama said. -/LPM (FREEMAN)