📷 techwireasia.com
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. approved the Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) e-Marketplace Procurement System amid several hacking attacks against government websites.
In a Palace Briefing on Tuesday, DBM Procurement Service Executive Director Dennis Santiago said the government is set to launch a pilot e-marketplace for procurement in July to eliminate the need for lengthy bidding processes.
Santiago also said that the e-marketplace will significantly shorten the procurement process, currently taking 26 to 136 days, to potentially just one day for selecting and ordering goods.
DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, who was also in the press briefing, also expressed excitement about the launch, highlighting its potential to address bottlenecks in government budget utilization.
“The ongoing procurement reforms, including the proposed amendments to the 20-year old Government Procurement Reform Act, are our way of making our procurement system efficient, transparent, reliable, sustainable and future-proof,” Pangandaman said.
The e-Marketplace, patterned after popular online shopping platforms, will serve as a virtual space for government agencies to browse, select, and order various supplies.
When asked about the mechanisms to deter hacking attempts against government platforms, Santiago said there are strong security measures integrated within the e-Marketplace.
“We have multi-level security within our e-Marketplace, safeguarded by PhilGEPS, including advanced tools like Captcha to verify user authenticity,” Santiago said.
“While it’s true that hacking attempts are prevalent across all sectors, our systems have robust security measures in place to detect and counter these challenges effectively,” he added. (TCSP)
