Talisay councilors ditch issued laptops

CEBU, Philippines - Two years after it purchased expensive laptops supposedly for paperless sessions, the Talisay City council is back again to using paper.

This was what The FREEMAN noticed for the past many sessions held every Tuesday, when councilors and even presiding officer and Vice Mayor Alan Bucao brought copies of their resolutions and ordinances instead of laptops that were issued to them by the government last year.

“I’ve already told Vice Mayor Bucao about that, because their laptops are supposed to be for a paperless session, like what they have all agreed upon before they bought those units,” said Sangguniang Panlungsod secretary Emigdio Enjambre Jr.

Apart from Enjambre, only city councilors Shirley Belleza and Ben Abatayo and Sangguniang Kabataan Federation president April Marie Cabigas, who sometimes bring their laptops with them to the session.

But it is also noticed that laptops were used to access their facebook accounts and sometimes for public online chats. Shortly after the council approved the resolution for the purchase of the laptops,which was pegged at P47,000 each (an HP unit), the councilors had also agreed to install a wireless internet in the session hall so that they could all access to the internet.

It is the office of Enjambre that sends through email the order of business and all the attachments to the councilors every Friday, to give them time to study what will be tackled in the coming session.

But since the councilors no longer bring their laptops with them, the office of the SP secretary would then have to photocopy all those in the order of business for all the councilors, an extra expense for the government.

When it was proposed, many councilors were opposed to the idea of going high tech for the reason that they did not know to operate a laptop computer.

On February of 2008 the laptops were delivered, and not one of them refused to accept the devices.

A paperless session was proposed to save on government funds in the long run, but it appears the councilors have already forgotten about the purpose. (FREEMAN NEWS)