the technology in LGUs

One of the salient features of our Constitution, among others, is the empowerment of our local government units. With the decentralization of power, the localized government units are believed to be able to answer the needs of each locality more specifically. It also makes it easier to administer public services to its constituents as it deals with the giving of services in their own communities. Governance, which is organization of collective action, is also made efficient with the decentralization.

How does ICT then come into play with the administration of these services, especially in the more rural areas? The use of computers in government offices is definitely different from utilizing information systems technology. You can probably find a computer in most government offices but I doubt if they utilize it to manage their information database. If you go to a government office, you’ll see several desktops at hand but they’ll still look for the hard copy at their records section for the information or document that you need. They will still process your requests manually despite the available technology. They may have the system but the people themselves refuse to avail of it.

It was mentioned that one of the major problems in the implementation of ICT is culture and the behavior of the people in accepting the new improved system. People are resistant to change, even if such change would be more efficient. And I’m not only talking about the employees of the government offices themselves but also of their constituents as well. Our LGUs have set up local websites, and I do commend them for that. However, the problem is that their sites are more for people outside the community rather than for their constituents. You see links for places to go, investor relations and other information that people from outside would wanna know to look into the community. They have yet to utilize ICT in developing databases and information systems in administering “public services”. Funny, even with the local websites installed, the constituents themselves have no idea about it and their employees have yet to use it.