e-Government

Republic Act 8792, better known as the E-Commerce Law, was signed into law on June 14, 2000 and took effect five days later. One of the key provisions of this law is that the government is mandated to be e-commerce-capable by June 19, 2002. Today is five years and three months later. I would say there are mixed results.

A few observations of the sites I frequent:

aa. SEC – www.sec.gov.ph is generally slow in response time, but has most of what one needs as far as information is concerned. The Securities Regulation Code and its implementing rules and regulations are available on the main tab at the top of the homepage. For transactions, the "online transactions" tab is available to both reserve a name and register a company. They even have an ability to download the general form for financial statements, but the data date back to 2002 and do cover most of the companies. Generally, this site does the job. I do suggest the SEC’s Web master to check the US SEC website (www.sec.gov) to get some ideas on how to make the site respond quicker and disclose more.

bb. PSE – www.pse.org.ph is a decent site. I get the current stock prices and basic information on public companies. Generally, it is an acceptable site, although the archives of disclosures only go back three months. The PSE recently instituted its Odisys program where public companies can now file online, which effectively saves a lot of forests since we used to print more than 200 copies per report we filed with the PSE. (Kudos to the PSE team!)

cc. BIR – www.bir.gov.ph is a comprehensive site when it comes to the level of details available. The site is relatively fast. Unfortunately, according to the homepage, the issue on EVAT is still under TRO with the Supreme Court; maybe the Web master needs to be more current. The eTIN service (http://ereg.bir.gov.ph/ereg/welcome.do) needs a minor "kick in the you-now-where." I recently went through the eTin service and was really quite impressed with the relatively smooth process. Where the process fails is when the registrant is required to show up at the RDO (revenue district office) to, I guess, sign the final document and get the TIN card. The BIR clerk gives the registrant BIR forms in triplicate to fill up again. Why bother using the eTIN service if the brick-and-mortar process has not been reengineered to accept the service?

My Two Cents: Using e-commerce increases the quality of service (because I don’t need to talk to untrained clerks), increases transparency and of course, reduces cost. Although our e-government efforts have made headway, there is still a lot of work ahead. The challenge of creating a website is never-ending. Once you start, you have to maintain its information to be current and relevant and offer valuable service. It is a waste of money to have a website while the "brick-and-mortar" component of the service supply chain is still antique. This applies to both government and private efforts.

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Dickson Co is the CFO (C is for Cheap) for Dfnn, Intelligent Wave Philippines and HatchAsia.com. For comments or suggestions, e-mail [email protected].