The City Council of Davao on Tuesday passed on the third and final reading an ordinance for the digitalization of the Local Civil Registry of Davao City through the Civil Registry Information System (CRIS).
According to Councilor Bonz Andre A. Militar, chairperson of the Committee on Information Technology and proponent of the ordinance, the need to upgrade the system was evident during the Covid-19 pandemic wherein people have limited access to our LCR especially those living in far-flung areas.
“The need to provide convenience and accessibility for people to be able to request documents as easy as the tap of their fingers. Dabawenyos can create an account online which they can access wherever they are in the globe. Convenience and accessibility at their fingertips is what we intend to accomplish in upgrading our LCR system,” Militar said in his privileged speech.
Militar reported that during the committee hearing, it was found out that there is a backlog on the scanning of Civil Registry documents which are on file with the LCR.
He said the challenges faced by the accumulation of documents to scan is due to limited manpower and scanners with records to be scanned which goes back to 1945.
In the proposed CRIS online, all the documents from all partner institutions will be processed through the dedicated system making the queuing and assigning of registry numbers easier and more convenient.
“It likewise eliminates the possibility of duplication of registration/registry numbers as the system will be able to automatically assign the numbers for each document to be registered,” Militar said.
Militar added that with the implementation of the system, the City Civil Registry Office will be able to anticipate the volume of documents for registration in a day.
Militar underscored that the online system will provide clients easy access to their civil registry records anytime anywhere.
“Further, request for certification and access to their records in the system must comply with the data privacy rules implemented by the city government of Davao,” he said.
Militar said the funds for the implementation of this project will be taken from the annual or supplementary budget of the city government of Davao as the case may be and any recurring expenses for the maintenance and operations of the system shall be charged to the annual budget of the City Civil Registrar’s Office of Davao.
