TACLOBAN CITY– The provincial government of Leyte is undertaking an ambitious yet an essential initiative aimed at digitizing the government operations in a bid to improve public service delivery, increase transparency, and reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies.
Leyte Governor Carlos Jericho Petilla said a number of projects that have been started by the province since 2022 are part of a broader strategy to modernize the public sector and align it with global standards of governance in the digital age.
Leyte’s digital transformation is upgrading government systems with modern technology which covers a variety of sectors, including healthcare, education, disaster response, taxation, financial resource administration, and document management system.
“Our citizens deserve services that are quick, accessible, and transparent and digitizing our services can help us achieve that,” Gov. Petilla said.
The governor also made a similar push to business groups at the recently concluded 34th Visayas Area Business Conference held in Palo, Leyte.
The digitalization effort of the province is focused on simplifying procedures such as licensing, permit applications, and tax filings, making them available online for greater public accessibility. Additionally, the government have also worked on e-citizen portals where residents can access everything from medical records to business registrations.
The provincial government has already institutionalized its iTax system, a user-friendly interface for online assessment, billing, and payment. Taxpayers, particularly those in remote areas benefit from online payment platforms such as GCash, PayMaya, debit and credit cards, online bank transfers, and other accredited portals.
Another initiative is the PricEat Leyte which is an online price monitoring tool developed by the Leyte provincial government to help consumers and traders find the cheapest basic farm products. It can be accessed on the leyteprovince.gov.ph website and the tool displays the price, store name, and monitoring time for various commodities.
In its thrust to improve education, the Learn Smart initiative is aimed at enhancing digital learning and bridging the digital divide in schools and communities. This initiative involves providing digital resources, training, and support to teachers and learners in the province.
One of the more recent one is the Quick Medical Record (QMeR). This is a digital version of a patient chart which contains the medical and treatment history of patients. QMeR is designed to rationalize the clinician’s workflow by consolidating patient information in one easily accessible storage.
The governor pointed out these initiatives are not without challenges especially in the roll out of the projects to the municipal level such as uneven internet access, bureaucratic inefficiency, low digital literacy in some sectors and patchy government digital integration.
However, the governor vowed to make government services faster, more accessible, and more user-friendly. With the shift toward digital, residents can expect reduced waiting times and fewer trips to government offices, enhancing the overall experience.
He assures that digitizing transactions and services of the government is also in line with the national directives for digitalization in the government to improve ease of doing business and fight many forms of graft and corruption.
In a previous State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr directed all government offices to fully embrace digitalization to provide better service to the people, through its vital frontline services and its back-end functions.
Digitalization is the greatest and most powerful tool that will support the government’s data-driven, science-based planning and decision-making, he said.
(AHLETTE REYES, PIA-8)
