THE 20TH City Council approved on the third and final reading the ordinance institutionalizing the “less paper session” system, reducing reliance on printed materials.
The ordinance requires only three copies of the agenda and all its attachments to be printed by the SP Office of the Secretary. Meanwhile, all agendas, committee reports, attachments, and other items shall be converted to digital copies and emailed to the lawmakers.
Councilor Bonz Andrei Militar, chair of the information technology committee and the proponent of the ordinance, said the new system is cost-effective apart from easing access to all items in the agenda.
Militar recalled that the reams of paper used in the previous sessions averaged 17, but digitalization will cut the number down to five.
The SP Office of the Secretary has appropriated P4,836,570 to upgrade the Legislative Information Support System Program (LISSP) and fully implement “less paper session.”
The fund earmarked for the new system will be used to procure 30 units of portable devices (tablets), eight units of laptops (for stenographers), one document camera, six units of access points, a cloud subscription, one unit generation firewall, enterprise broadband internet access, and development cost of implementation of LISSP Phase 2.
The second phase of LISSP as stated in the ordinance is the establishment of center cloud storage where SP members can access the items such as agenda and committee reports system for tracking documents’ retrieval and storage, and an archive for all approved landmark ordinances.
Militar told TIMES that it will take two- to three months before the system is fully implemented as they have to undergo hardcoding, including building a firewall to protect from unauthorized access and users from malware threats.
“Apil sa gi-purchase nato ang firewall, isa na sya sa pag-protect sa data, mag stop sa intruders, data breach, naa pud nay gi- ready for back up since dili man gud nato na 100% ma-protect,” Militar said.
Militar is optimistic that before 2023 ends, the 20th City Council incoming sessions will be implementing the system as they also have to orient the “non-techie” SP members for proper utilization.
“After LISSP naa tay orientation sa councilor unsaon paggamit para ma familiar tanan mogamit since lisod ni sya kay nakasanayan ang manual,” he added.
