Tehnical issues affecting BIR functions

MANILA, Philippines — Despite intervention from the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) continued to experience technical difficulties in all its systems and electronic services, impairing the agency’s ability to deliver frontline services.

In a letter to Information and Communications Technology Acting Secretary Eliseo Rio Jr., Internal Revenue deputy commissioner Lanee Cui David said the bureau had started to experience erratic network connections, affecting all its systems and e-Services, last Aug. 10.

This happened at the height of the DICT’s work to restore and back-up the BIR’s Electronic Tax Information System (eTIS), which became inaccessible after a hardware meltdown last July.

According to David, the intermittent network connectivity further delayed the bureau’s efforts to migrate the eTIS backup data and files from the DICT’s data center (DC) in Quezon City to another one in Makati City.

 “Said network connection only stabilized last Aug. 30. However, note that eTIS file restoration has not been completed as of date,” said David, who is in charge of the BIR’s Information Systems Group.

Due to this problem, David asked the DICT to provide an update on the measures it has taken to resolve the bureau’s technical woes, as well as long-term solutions to support the BIR’s requirements on data center hosting and provisioning.

David said the BIR has repeatedly communicated with the DICT the urgency  of strengthening and enhancing its data center, as envisioned under Executive Order 47, which paved way for the implementation of the Integrated Government Philippines program (iGovPhil).

Launched six years ago, the iGovPhil Program aims to rationalize government operations and improve the delivery of goods and services to the people through the use of information and communications technology.

 “We have always been forthright that BIR needs an iGovPhil DC that is able to fully and adequately address all components of DC hosting and provisioning—infrastructure, services, applications, tools, not simply physical hosting or co-location,” the BIR official said.

 “Therefore, may we be apprised on what DICT has undertaken so far to address recurring iGov DC co-location problems of BIR and in the long-term, how to fully and effectively support the complex BIR requirements on DC hosting and provisioning,” she said.

On July 3 this year, the BIR’s eTIS operations broke down, shutting the agency’s access to taxpayer records, particularly its Large Taxpayers’ Service and the Makati Revenue Region.