Koronadal City—As an IT graduate, South Cotabato Governor Reynaldo Tamayo, Jr. believed that improving the internet speed will maximize the economic growth of the province.
“Once we improve our internet connectivity, investments will pour in and it will eventually increase employment,” the governor said during a weekly meet-up with the local press here.
He told reporters of his meeting with the Philippines Special Envoy to China William Lima about increasing the maximum internet connection in South Cotabato.
“I requested them to improve the bandwidth and use underwater fiber optics,” Tamayo said.
The governor attended a meeting with Lima for possible Chinese investments in South Cotabato.
The town of Polomolok is an identified economic zone with the development of a 59-hectare property manufacturing and information and technology project worth P701.1 million by Richmond Land Innovations Inc.
Richmond Land is a subsidiary of the RD Group of Companies, a family-controlled enterprise founded and managed by businessman Rodrigo E. Rivera Sr.
The Provincial Government of South Cotabato, meanwhile, is using information technology in governance.
Jennifer Bretaña, Provincial Planning and Development Coordinator, announced that the province was chosen as 2019 Best in E-Governance because of the financial monitoring and document tracking system.
The award was given by the Department of Information, Communication, and Technology (DICT).
“I salute our IT experts for developing mobile apps for good governance,” Bretaña said.
The IT Division of the Provincial Government has developed two systems that would be launched this semester.
The mobile application is a payslip system where government employees could track down their payslips using their android phones.
In support of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), the Provincial Government is set to launch this June the Inteli-bid, an online procurement system. Contractors and suppliers will be able to see different projects that are open for bidding. Through their android phone, businessmen could also monitor the status of the provincial government’s payment.
Meanwhile, the public can view and access right at home all the provincial government data through the Integrated Socio-Economic Profile of South Cotabato or ISEPS, a web-based data profile of the provincial local government unit this year.
“This is an access system where the public can browse online data about South Cotabato’s government data anytime, anywhere,” Bretaña added.
The governor plans to pull in all the IT experts within the Provincial Capitol and establish an IT Office that oversees the installation and maintenance of the computer network system within the Capitol.
Tamayo believed that IT is important in capital planning, payroll, inventory management, accounting and even in the health system.
The Provincial Government maintains a website for relevant and timely data for public consumption.
