USING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS

 

USING GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS

When I was an IT consultant at the Makati City Hall, we implemented a Geographic Information System (GIS) primarily for the purpose of computerizing the city’s Real Property Tax Assessment System (RPTAS). It was there that I learned that flat analog maps are really not reliable as legal basis for defining property lines, because these are almost always inaccurate. I also learned that the best approach to solve the problem is to conduct a new land survey that would define property lines based on coordinates, and not based on the old cement markers.

Because of the RPTAS that we implemented, there was an increase of real property tax collections, meaning that the investment of the city government was worth every penny of it, and the project became a major source of income for the city. At that time however, internet based online services were not yet available, so what we implemented was really an offline system that was only running in a Local Area Network (LAN). Fast forward to today, I am now an IT consultant for the Marinduque provincial government, and I now have a new opportunity to implement a province-wide RPTAS, covering six LGUs. But now that internet access is available, we are going to make sure that the service will be online. That way, any owner of any piece of property within the province could pay for their real property taxes any time and from anywhere, even if they are not in the province. IKE SENERES/09088877282/03-31-24

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