The Regional Development Council VIII-Regional Project Monitoring Committee (RDC VIII-RPMC) met Wednesday, 23 February 2022, to launch Eastern Visayas’ first web-based project monitoring system.

Dubbed the Eastern Visayas Project Monitoring System (EV-PMS), the system digitizes the quarterly submission of the Regional Project Monitoring Evaluation System (RPMES) reports and provides a publicly-accessible platform for stakeholders, and even the general public, to track the progress of and access any information on government programs and projects in Eastern Visayas.

The EV-PMS aims to improve transparency and accountability in the implementation of government programs and projects in the region by providing easy access to the status of major government projects.

“With these integrated information systems in place, we expect the timely and accurate submission of reports, automation of monitoring activities, generation of high-quality data through data analytics and visualization technology, closer collaboration with project implementing units, and improvement of data accessibility by all stakeholders.” said NEDA Undersecretary Mercedita A. Sombilla in her opening message.

In his Opening Remarks, RD Bonifacio G. Uy of NEDA VIII gave a background on the EV-PMS, which goes back to a proposal in 2019 by RDC VIII-Private Sector Representative Atty. Roy Bernard Fiel to create a standardized management information system (MIS) to aid the RDC VIII in its planning and decision-making activities and improve transparency and accountability of government programs and projects. The RDC passed a resolution requesting the technical assistance of the DICT to create the web-based portal. With this resolution, the RDC convened a small group composed of MIS/IT experts to assist the RDC in this task. Considering the timeline and budgetary constraints, the RDC VIII opted to adopt the CALABARZON Project Monitoring System (cPMS) of NEDA IV-A to be able to produce a regional system quickly with the same objectives. The development of the system was also made possible with the hiring of IT staff in NRO VIII in 2021.

With the launch of the EV-PMS, the RDC VIII-RPMC enjoined regional agencies to begin encoding their ongoing projects in 2022 and carry-over projects from 2020-2021 to populate the system and still email the RPMES forms to NEDA VIII for verification. For their part, over 32 agencies, SUCs and RDC VIII private sector representatives signed a statement of commitment to support and adopt the EV-PMS.

The EV-PMS is still continually undergoing improvements based on feedback from users as more and more regional agencies adopt the system. The system can be accessed at www.evpms.ph.

Article and Photos by: Knulp Aseo, DRD and Miriel O. Pido, PMED