OFW MONITORING SYSTEM

OFW MONITORING SYSTEM

Dear Mr. President: Despite the diligent efforts of the DFA and the DMW to frequently monitor the status of our OFWs abroad, there are still many cases of them not being found or contacted in times of emergency. There are also some cases wherein our OFWs get into some troubles abroad, without our knowing about it until they are jailed or executed. What is needed to solve this problem is to build a database of all OFWs abroad regardless of who they are, and where they are. That is a goal that has not been done before, and it is about time that the government does it.

Fortunately, Sir, a Filipino software developer has come up with such a database, and I am happy to inform you that it will not cause the Philippine government a single centavo to implement it. Mr. Ferdenand Ibraheem Lawag Sabado, a Microsoft certified programmer together with an all-Filipino development team. Although I am not a programmer myself, I was able to help the team in terms of its product development and marketing planning.

Here is how the database will work: All recruitment agencies will be required to register their departing clients with the database administrators. Upon arrival in their host countries, they will again be required to again register with the nearest embassy or consulate, through the local Labor Attache or the Migrant Workers Office (MWO) representative. Upon completing the registration process, the OFW will be given a free account in a mobile app that will have a “hot button” that he or she could press in the event of an emergency.

As soon as he or she presses the “hot button”, an alarm will ring in the cellphones of designated persons at the recruitment agencies, at the embassies and consulates, and at the central office of the DMW. Any of these three designated persons can call or text the OFW right away, to find out what his or her problem is. Although the software is already capable of this feature, it is up to the government to finalize the rules.

To offer this database for free to the government, Mr. Sabado plans to cover his costs and raise revenues by way of monthly subscriptions and some other ancillary sources of income such as advertising and promotions. This mode of doing business is very common now among web based and cloud based such as Zoom and Netflix, among others.

Since my days as the Management Information Services (MIS) Director of the DFA, I have always wanted to build this type of interactive OFW database for the government. However, at that time, it was very expensive to do it, and no budgets were available at that time. Fast forward to today Mr. President, the budget is no longer a problem, because the database is already being offered for free, at no cost to the government. For your information Sir, Mr. Sabado is only one of many other programmers and developers who want to help the government by developing mobile apps and interactive databases for free. Please let me know if you want to contact them. IKE SENERES/10-13-2024

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HOW IS THE CRIME RATE COMPUTED IN THE PHILIPPINES?

HOW IS THE CRIME RATE COMPUTED IN THE PHILIPPINES? When we talk about the crime rate in the Philippines, we often assume that the figures we see are accurate reflections of reality. But have we ever paused to ask—how exactly is the crime rate computed? Where does this data come from, and how reliable is it? The computation of the crime rate in the Philippines is officially handled by the Philippine National Police (PNP). The formula itself is straightforward: Crime Rate = (Total Reported Crimes / Total Population) x 100,000 This simple equation gives us the number of crimes per 100,000 people, allowing for fair comparison across regions and time periods. However, the reality behind these numbers is more complex than it appears. Data from the Ground The foundation of our national crime rate is empirical data collected at the grassroots level—from individual police stations scattered across the country. Every reported crime is logged in local police blotters, forming the buil...
Read more

GREY AREAS IN GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS

GREY AREAS IN GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONS Dear Mr. President: May I ask who is going to be the arbiter or referee whenever there are overlaps in functions between two or more government agencies? I imagine that there would be no problem if these agencies would just cooperate and collaborate with each other, but what if they are unable to settle their differences and they would just end up throwing blame at each other or finger pointing at each other? Allow me to cite some examples. Who is supposed to take the lead in waste to energy projects? Is it supposed to be the DENR that is supposed to handle waste? Or is it supposed to be the DOE that is supposed to handle energy generation? Or is it supposed to be the DILG since it is the one that could direct or influence the waste to energy projects of LGUs? Who is supposed to take the lead in producing and promoting the use of biofuels? Is it supposed to be the DA, since the production of biofuels is supposed to be all about planting biofuel ...
Read more

LOCALIZED FREE AMBULANCE SERVICES

LOCALIZED FREE AMBULANCE SERVICES As it is supposed to be, anyone in the Philippines should be able to dial 911, and a telephone operator should be able to dispatch fire, rescue, ambulance and police (FRAP) units as soon as possible, based on acceptable response times. I invented the FRAP acronym for easy recall, and I hope it sticks, if there is no other alternative. Unfortunately, due to a mixture of technical and political reasons, the Philippines has not adopted 911 as a national number, because some LGUs would rather use their own three-digit numbers such as 117 and 168. I actually proposed a technical solution to that problem, but it was not adopted either. For whatever it is worth, my solution is to install a call forwarding system that could route all calls to a central operator, regardless of what number is dialed. It is very sad for me to know that up to now, even if our country is already over one hundred years old, there are still many LGUs that do not have fire trucks. it ...
Read more