BIMP registrants breaches 50 thousand mark; benefits laid out
BAGUIO CITY – More than 54,000 residents have enrolled in the Baguio In My Pocket (BIMP) free smart phone application as the city government doubled down on its registration and information campaigns aimed at enrolling every resident in the coming months.
In a media forum Wednesday, City Mayor’s Office chief of staff Philip Puzon said the city has already acquired the assistance of health workers, nutrition action officers and scholars of the barangays to assist in the registration endeavor.
Help will also be sought from barangay officials to speed-up the registration process , he added.
BIMP is a collection of applications aimed at promoting an e-government ecosystem to include cashless payment transactions, citizen data management, contact tracing and other essential services for local residents.
Puzon said the program started in July last year when a memorandum of agreement was signed between the city and Pasig-based Information Technology Business Solutions (ITBS) Corporation, the app’s provider.
As proof of concept, a pilot testing of the program was conducted at Irisan barangay in October where 23,000 residents registered in just three weeks paving the way for a citywide roll-out, he said.
The app can be used as a vaccination database where information gathered from residents will help refine the selection for the vaccine roll out and ease the process of vaccination, Puzon said.
Currently, it is being used for business and real property tax assessments with its QR (Quick Reference) code features for entry protection and access to City Hall.
For his part, MJ Barin of ITBS said that if fully implemented, the BIMP app provides a contact-less access to a wide array of services of the government like a 911 emergency system, an online marketplace, and a market to home delivery system.
Other benefits include a document folder, an entertainment portal and an e-Government transaction portal that serves as a one stop shop for government transactions.
Another feature, a “Know-Your-Citizen module”, will allow barangays to identify and analyse the needs of their residents in order that they may be served more effectively by local government, Barin said.
“Let us not be afraid to embrace this technology since it will be of great help to us in our ‘new normal’ way of living,” he stressed.
The BIMP application is regularly being optimized to tailor-fit the needs of Baguio residents, Barin assured.-Gaby B. Keith
