THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT BE REACHED

THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT BE REACHED

Dear Mr. President: Perhaps it has already come to your attention, but based on my own actual experience, it is very difficult to contact the government by phone, via email, via Facebook, and via any other social media. Although it is already widely known that most people do not have landlines anymore, I wonder why many government agencies would only publish landlines in their brochures, posters and websites, and nothing else, not even their email addresses and Viber numbers. When I see that, I am tempted to think that perhaps, they do not want to be contacted at all.

As it happens, when anyone calls their landline numbers, it either always busy, or no one really answers after many rings. And if someone even answers, it is either the wrong person, or the right person is not available. When that happens, the caller is either told to call again, or the caller is just told to come to the office in person. The problem here, Mr. President, is that it is very expensive to call a landline from a mobile phone, and that is why it is costing a lot of money for our citizens just to call the government.

The good news is, Facebook is now free in mobile phones, and so is Facebook Messenger (FBM). And that is the reason why our netizens are now using Short Messaging Service (SMS) messages less and less and are using FBM more and more. In a similar manner, our netizens are using Global System for Messaging (GSM) voice calls less and less and are using FBM calls more and more. The bad news however Mr. President, is that many if not most of the National Government Agencies (NGAs) and Local Government Units (LGUs) do not answer their FBMs. Well, they do answer via auto reply that they will “get back to me” as soon as possible, but they never do.

The other good news is that other mobile apps such Viber, WhatsApp and Telegram are also free on the mobile phones, and you could use these for both chat messages and voice calls. The bad news however, Mr. President, is that very few NGAs and LGUs publish their Viber, WhatsApp and Telegram numbers in their brochures, posters and websites. I can understand Mr. President why some NGAs and LGUs are struggling to obey your orders to implement digitalization because of budget reasons, but I could not understand why they could not use these mobile apps that are available for free.

I would like to take this opportunity Mr. President, to commend your Presidential Management Staff (PMS), because they have been diligently answering my emails, and have been faithfully referring these to the NGAs concerned, for them to act. Your team assigned to answer your FBMs has been laggard, because I have not received an answer from them after messaging you for almost a year now. Same goes for your team assigned to answer your Twitter and Instagram accounts.

As a former Director General of the National Computer Center (NCC) Mr. President, I fully support your calls for digitalization, but I am saddened by the fact that the people who are running our NGAs and LGUs could not even answer their email accounts and their social media accounts. What is the use of being the texting capital of the world Sir, if our people could not even message their own government? IKE SENERES/10-27-24

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