17/07/2025
19๐ญ๐ก ๐๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ค๐๐ฌ โ๐๐ข๐ ๐ข๐ญ๐๐ฅ ๐ซ๐๐ฏ๐จ๐ฅ๐ฎ๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐งโ ๐จ๐ ๐ฅ๐จ๐๐๐ฅ ๐ฅ๐๐ ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฅ๐๐ญ๐ข๐ฏ๐ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐จ๐๐๐ฌ๐ฌ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐ฎ๐๐ณ๐จ๐ง
By John A Bello
The 19th Sangguniang Panlalawigan (SP) of Quezon led by Vice Gov. and SP Presiding Officer Third Alcala has set off a digital revolution with the launching of the historic Electronic Legislative Information System (ELIS) in September last year which made the total revamp of the age-old local legislative process through Electronic Submission (E-Submission) from the various Sangguniang Bayan (SB) of the provinceโ 39 municipalities and 1 component city to the SP.
SP Legislative Records Division Office head Carlo Villafranca testified about the beauty of the ELIS claiming it has lessened physical submission of SB ordinances and resolutions to SP in Lucena city from far-flung island municipalities such as Jomalig, Panukulan, Patnanungan, Burdeos, Polillo, Quezon, Perez, Alabat and even from San Francisco and San Andres in Bondoc Peninsula.
Villafranca said that the cost of physical transmission of local legislative measures in terms of time, travel and expenses for SB secretaries has been greatly reduced with the establishment of ELIS such that municipal ordinances and resolutions are almost instantly uploaded in the ELIS platform in real time and the process can be tracked and monitored by stakeholders and end-users.
Feeling elated with ELIS, Villafranca said there is now a much faster, easier and more efficient and effective process of doing things in the local legislative system with ELIS in place especially with the e-submission and tracking system of SB ordinances and resolutions for review by the SP.
โImagine the submission of voluminous budget documents by the SB which previously entails each copy for the vice governor, the SP secretary, 13 SP members and the provincial budget office, but with ELIS now, only 3 physical copies are required โ 1 copy each for the SP Legislative Division, for SP Records, for provincial budget office and along with a receiving copy for the LGU (Local Government Unit),โ said Villafranca who has been almost 12 years already in SP as Records Officer and has served 9 years as SB member of Gumaca from 1995 to 2004.
He added that ELIS is not yet perfect as a system but it has reduced expenses and manual, physical efforts for concerned office personnel and has made the local legislative process almost paperless now.
Quezon Vice Governor and SP Presiding Officer Third Alcala said in his privilege speech which kicked off the launching of SP ELIS last year:
โELIS is the first ever comprehensive provincial legislative system developed for Quezon province that stores resolutions and ordinances, archives them into efficient digital storage, tracks documents in real-time, and assists submissions from the Sangguniang Bayan to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan. We are glad to say that we are one of the pioneers in the country when it comes to the e-submission module of ELIS.โ
Digitization of Records
In a free-wheeling interview last month with this writer, Villafranca said Vice Gov. Third has wanted the SP legislative records from 1901 to present to be digitized and from 2022 when the vice governor has started to assume office the SP has been able to digitize its provincial legislative ordinances and resolutions up to date.
The SP chief records custodian revealed that legislative documents in the SP Archive Library from 2021 backwards are now being scanned electronically for digital storage and the SP seeks to procure an Overhead Scanner - which looks like a lampshade - to undertake the scanning of age-old voluminous books with fragile pages that could easily be ruined with the use of ordinary electronic scanner.
Villafranca expressed awe at the history and evolution of the decades-old valuable ordinances and resolutions and their various attachments of committee hearing documents kept in the SP Library and imagined the horror of their being lost or ruined to calamities such as during typhoons or occurrence of floods or accidental fires as it would be hard to recover or reconstitute ruined documents.
He cited an instance during typhoon Rosing in Nov. 1995 when the SP office was then located at 2nd floor of the Old Capitol Building and floodwater had reached the inside of the office and some legislative books got wet.
Villafranca said that the SP historical legislative records must be protected as they are fraught with valuable historical informations such as the proponent who sponsored the proposed ordinance, who manifested opposition, when were the legislative measures approved, their intent in passing the measures and ultimately they contained the sentiments, views and opinions of all the SP members who have played significant part of the historic origin and evolution of SP as a government institution.
At the ELIS launching last Sept., Vice Gov. Alcala recounted in his speech during his first arrival at the SP when he assumed office in July 2022 that his attention was caught by the vast array of records in the SP archive section which kept records since 1901 up to present.
โI feel that every document is a doorway to the stories that shaped this Sangguniang Panlalawigan of Quezon. Nakakagulat na makita ang kasaysayan ng ating probinsiya sa likod ng mga librong ito,โ the vice governor said, adding that the SP records hold immense historical value which calls for SP to embrace change to align with the call for e-governance of the national government citing the statement of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. during his 2nd State of the Nation Address that digitalization is the โgreatest, most powerful toolโ not only to improve ways of doing business but also to stamp out graft and corruption.
The vice governor said he intended to implement the digitization of the SP records and has found out that the National Library has taken the initiative of producing digital copy in the SP archive through scanning some of the records from 1901 to 2011 which are now accessible on the National Library Website.
Villafranca disclosed that Records Division staff employees Tess Bocala and Hazel Mantala have discovered โgapsโ in their research and tracking of various legislative documents in the SP Library. The โgapsโ pointed to damaged and lost books due to unknown or undetermined causes with the long passage of time and changes of administrations.
Mantala said that damaged and lost books were from 1939 to 1947, 1953 to 1955 and 1961 to 1962. She also said that the National Library has scanned books in the SP Library from April 1901 to Dec. 2010.
Legislative process
Julie Monder, SP Board Secretary and Acting Legislative Division (LD) head, related briefly the faster and smoother flow of the legislative process thru ELIS from the SB level to the SP:
Once an ordinance or resolution is approved at the Sangguniang Bayan, it has to be transmitted within 3 days as mandated by the Local Government Code to the Sangguniang Panlalawigan for legislative review. With ELIS in place, once a SB ordinance or resolution is received by SP, it is endorsed to Regie Cambal, an LD staff, for legislative tracking โ when posted in the SP agenda, what action taken in committee, when approved, etc. โ before it is referred for the setting of the agenda in the SP regular session. The legislative flow can be seen and tracked in ELIS.
Monder said there is still manual tracking, aside from ELIS, of the legislative process to ensure security and clarity but end-users can now research or inquire about municipal ordinances in ELIS if there were updates or if they have been approved already. Also uploaded at ELIS platform are scanned SB resolutions, request letters of Gov Helen Tan and other issuances and executive orders from the provincial governorโs office.
She said that the only occasional challenge for ELIS is weak internet connection which make SB members and staff sometimes complain that they are unable to send their documents or they have not yet received some update or action from SP.
Christia Alcala Alzaga, a PWD and newbie staff, is in charge of receiving and tracking documents โ municipal ordinances, resolutions, local executive orders from various LGUs - in the ELIS platform. She checks, sorts documents and if they are in order with all the necessary attachments, she endorses them to the LD for further processing and proper setting of the agenda. She also attaches news links and programs related to the provincial government and post them in the ELIS.
First in the country
Gabrielle Brizuela, liaison and over-all manager of GMST, Inc., which partnered with SP to make possible the establishment of the ELIS platform in Quezon, expressed their companyโs commitment to make legislative governance and processes seamless and more efficient for all SP stakeholders and end-users.
Brizuela believes that the Quezon SP ELIS, especially the E-submission module at the provincial level, is the first in the entire country.
She said their digital firm was highly excited in the prospects and potential of the ELIS project in Quezon saying it is considered their โfirst babyโ of its kind and they want it to succeed and institutionalized for the benefit and development of all the local government units and their municipal councils in the province.
Brizuela, a management engineering graduate, recounted how Vice Gov. Alcala has approached them and asked what applicable digital technology their company can offer for SP legislative processes.
Initially they proposed and presented to Alcala for SP to have its own website and digital library and after 3 benchmarking meetings and data gatherings with all SP stakeholders โ finding out the usual challenge of physical submission of SB budget documents, ordinances and resolutions; travel expenses from distant island municipalities to the SP - they eventually decided, aside from the establishment of own SP website and digital library, to adopt the special feature of E-Submission module.
โVice Gov. Alcalaโs goal is really to automate the SP legislative process, and he is broadminded, critical, he suggests and listens, especially on highly technical matters and does his own research,โ Brizuela said in a recent interview at the SP Library.
She recounted how the ELIS project has taken off since conceptualization: 5-6 months of data gathering, research and development, coordination with the Quezon Provincial Information and Communication Technology office, consultation with the Dept. of Information and Communication and Technology on the SP domain, orientation meeting with the SB secretaries and benchmarking meeting with SP Secretariat, SP board members, and several municipal councilors for their inputs and suggestions.
Citing the beauty of digital submission in ELIS, Brizuela told an instance of a certain Sang. Bayan whose municipality was hit by a typhoon: the SB passes a resolution to declare a state of calamity, submits it to the ELIS platform and right then and there, all involved stakeholders had access in real time so there is immediate action.
With the SP ELIS slowly but surely making headway for all the SP stakeholders since last year, Brizuela said she still visits regularly at SP, asks SP Secretariat on status of the system, finds out challenges encountered. She said that most of the challenges are about onboarding, not on the platform itself โ how it is hard to navigate in the computer platform, the need for the ELIS users to be trained and retrained from the manual system to the digital system of doing things until they get used to it.
Brizuela said that in time, ultimately, with ELIS deeply entrenched in the SP and SB legislative processes, digital technology will be working seamlessly for the stakeholders, not the other way around.
Ensuring efficient legislative work
In line with the SP commitment to ensure the efficient legislative operation of the SP backstopped by ELIS, Atty. Francis Xavier Sia, SP Secretary, has talked and discussed with SP rank-and-file employees last Tuesday about the necessity for templates for all the legislative processes, the need to put identifying codes on all legislative documents, checklist data as guide for SP members and preparation of legislative calendar for the next 3 years, among other internal office matters, updates and concerns regarding compliance with ISO standards that the entire provincial government, along with SP, are seeking to achieve and complete this year.
For her part, Maria Gracia Sorezo, SP Assistant Dept. Head for Administration said that ELIS is purely legislative in nature but she seeks to assure that the performance, mobilization and accountability of the concerned SP personnel must be in compliance as to who is responsible in the entire process.
