"Mainstreaming eGovernance in Public Administration",  was the theme of the 1st eGov4MD Forum and General Assembly held last May 4 to 5, 2009. EGov4MD or eGovernance for Municipal Development Inc., is a non-profit organization of municipal government employees engaged in IT related projects or broadly, egovernance. - quoted from their official website http://egov4md.org.  More than 100 parcipants attended the forum held at the Philippine Trade and Training Center in Manila.  

Some of the topics presented were: "Political and Management Dimensions of eGovernance: Strategies and Learnings", "Humanizing eGovernance: Technical and Social Dimensions" and "Introduction to Free Open Source Software (FOSS)". This enabled LMP to look back on what was gained, the challenges it faced and the practices that worked best. This forum was also a celebration of milestones achieved during implementation of EGov4MD and marks the signing of an expanded Inter-Municipal Cooperation on eGovernance wherein the Municipality of Paniqui, Tarlac will be participating.

Our very own Mayor Rivilla acted as emcee for the event with Ms. Li-Ann De Leon, LMP's Executive Director.  The Municipality of Tarlac would like to extend our many thanks to the League of the Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP), Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO), the Commission on Information and Communications Technology and the Department of Trade and Industry (DOTI).

Among the presentors were Municipal Mayors and IT Officers of different LGUs in Luzon.  DTI representatives also discussed topics on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) Schemes, and the Philippine Business Registry Project which is planned to be interfaced with the electronic Business Permit and Licensing System (eBPLS).

On the election of officers, a quorum was not reached thus the officers are now on holdover capacity.  However, elections are to be pursued via online voting.