Equipment deployment at Bacolod Kalawi CeC. From left: Azis Pangcoga, CeC manager; Hon. Diarangan Jaffar Dipatuan, Municipal Mayor; Arlyn Amores, NCC Regional IT Coordinator for ARMM; and Amer Watamama, assistant CeC manager.

To the people of Bacolod Kalawi during the past years, peace is but a five-letter word dream. The idea of peace, a trivial concept to people from urban areas, is a powerful idea for the local residents. The never-ending feud between the powerful clans of the municipality has residents living under constant fear and trepidation. For years, the highway of Bacolod Kalawi, the main road from Balindong to the inner municipalities of the second district, was impassable due to several incidents of armed conflicts which claimed a number of innocent lives.

This is one of the issues that Mayor Diarangan Dipatuan hopes to solve upon his assumption as mayor of Bacolod Kalawi. One of the ways with which the local government hopes to achieve peace and development is through the use of relevant technologies.

Upon learning about the Philippine Community eCenter (CeC) Program of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), Mayor Dipatuan immediately applied for the hosting of a CeC in their municipality. He was very glad when he was informed a week later that Bacolod Kalawi passed the evaluation and was granted one slot in the project. The CeC, according to Mayor Dipatuan, will be their guide to adopt technology in their municipality, a feat which they found difficult to even start before.

Arakan Mayor Gerardo Tuble (2nd from right) and Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator Elmer Montales (rightmost) receive the equipment package for Arakan CeC from NCC-FOO Dir. Tess Camba (2nd from left). Also in photo is Madeline Arevalo (leftmost), grant administrator.

"Kung ano ang kailangan ng CeC [namin], gagawin ko ang lahat para maibigay yun [Whatever our CeC needs, I'll do my best to provide it]," says Mayor Gerardo Tuble of Arakan, North Cotabato. This is why Mayor Tuble, together with Mr. Elmer Montales, Arakan's Municipal Planning and Development Coordinator, endured approximately twelve hours of travel to reach Zamboanga City to claim the two desktop computers they provided to them as beneficiaries of the equipment package of the Philippine CeC Program through its Strengthening CeC Grant program.

According to Mr. Montales, Arakan CeC has been looking for ways and means to purchase additional computers. The CeC caters mostly to the needs of students and government employees, and its presence has considerably sped up the operations of the municipality, given the ease of report submissions and retrievals. However, for their CeC to keep up with the changing and increasing demands and needs of their community, they'll need more than the six computers they currently have.

Aside from Arakan, the following are also the recent beneficiaries of the equipment package: FITS Curuan, FITS Zamboanga City, FITS Curuan, FITS Siocon and Siay CeC.