In time of the Yuletide Season, CDA concluded the year-end with twin significant events, Christmas Party and Awarding Ceremony. Cooperatives considered as outstanding and best in performance were given awards...
With a desire to improve the quality of services that the Cooperative Development Authority(CDA), Cebu Extension Office has been delivering to the public particularly to the cooperative sector in Region VII, the agency�s management staff looks for an innovative way to realize it. One approach, is the institutionalization of e-governance. The use of information technology in governance is an irreversible phenomenon that CDA should embrace if it wants to align itself to the trend of information era. Under the dynamic leadership of Administrator/Acting Regional Director Benjamin T. Yu and Assistant Regional Director Atty. Alexander C. Patac, the concept of a web-site creation has been proposed and considered seriously and officially. Although, the idea of creating a web-site is not a new one because the creation of each web-site in every extension office of CDA is part and parcel of CDA Philippine Cooperative Medium -Term Development and Investment Plan starting from the fiscal year 2006 to 2010. The CDA medium term plan is the blueprint to strengthen the institutional capacity and to enhance service delivery mechanism of the agency.
The people behind the success
Making a regional web-site of CDA is not an easy endeavor and it definitely constitutes a big challenge to the management. Two problems have been identified that may hinder the project implementation. The first problem is unavailability of budget and second is the absence of CDA personnel knowledgeable about computer science or information technology. These constraints, we have already hurdled. That is why despite the unavailability of budget last year, the CDA management which possessed the determination and initiative to carry it out has given the go-signal last November 2006 in commencing the creation of a web-site. Since no one of CDA personnel has the technical expertise to accomplish the project, the management is employing the strategy of harnessing the technical expertise of the Information Technology (IT) students from University of Cebu (UC) who are on-the-job-training of the off ice. Out of nine students undergoing on-the-job-training, three of them have been assigned to focus on the project under the auspice of Kenneth C. Repunte. The students are Carlo Gabutin, Ronald Bugais and Erlowayne John Larase. The students are under instruction to design the web-site that is friendly to the cooperative sector. Consequently, after more than four months of hard toil and mental effort, the mere idea of web-site creation becomes a reality. The new web-site comes to existence which is the product of the collaborative efforts not only of the three mainstay students assigned to it but also to other IT students who unselfishly contributive their technical knowledge of the project.
Cooperative - taking every steps to milestone...
Every year operating cooperative is mandated under the law to submit its annual report and audited financial statement including the general information sheet to the regulatory authority - CDA. The annual report and general information sheet forms are now made available in the web-site. What the cooperative officer or staff should do is just log-on in the internet if they do have the internet connection or go to the nearest internet cafe and download the forms for free. In this way, cooperative officers or staff need not go to CDA offices to ask for the forms. Moreover, if cooperative leaders/staff want to have information about the some memorandum circular issued by the authority, they are also downloadable in the web-site. We will try to update and put more relevant information to the web-site in the future.
To nine IT students, CONGRATULATION FOR A JOB WELL DONE! to UNIVERSITY OF CEBU, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
We look forward for your comments and suggestions.