manilatimes57d ago
QUEZON CITY has anchored its digital transformation on a unified identity system covering residents, businesses, and properties to improve service delivery and curb inefficiencies, its administrator said during a local governance forum in Pasig City on Wednesday, Feb. 11.Speaking at the Forum on Local Governance and Development titled “Reimagining Local Governance: Digital Transformation for Local Development,” City Administrator Michael Victor Alimurung said e-governance was adopted to address the challenges of serving 3.1 million residents across the 161-square-kilometer land area of Quezon City.Alimurung said the city pursued digitalization to counter the persistent perception of the government as slow, corrupt, inept and bureaucratic, adding that reforms must lead to faster processes and a better quality of life for citizens.“Digital transformation at the heart starts with smart identity management,” he said, explaining that Quezon City’s system is built around three core identifiers — the QC ID for residents, a unified business permit number for enterprises, and a property index number for land and buildings — supported by online platforms, fiber backbone infrastructure, and policies such as requiring a QC ID to access scholarships and financial assistance.The city now operates 34 online modules offering 241 services through its QCE Services platform, beginning with revenue-generating systems such as real property tax, business permits, and building permits before expanding to social services.Alimurung said 95 percent of city payments are now made digitally, largely through e-wallet platforms, while services such as scholarship applications, financial assistance, market stall reservations, library book borrowing, and vaccination scheduling are accessible online.Quezon City has registered 3.5 million QCE Services accounts and issued nearly 1.6 million QC IDs, which are used to verify residency, prevent duplicate claims for assistance, and link health and other service records.The city also operates a cloud-based health information system covering 19 facilities, allowing patients to access a single digital medical record linked to their QC ID.Alimurung said data dashboards now track real-time information on ID holders, scholars, service requests, and hotline concerns, with plans to launch a mobile app and heat map to monitor citizen tickets filed through the city’s 122 hotline.He said the success of digital transformation ultimately depends on leadership, stressing that reforms will move forward only if the local chief executive is committed to implementing them.
