By Zaldy De Layola, February 16, 2023;  Philippine News Agency

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1195378

MANILA – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has launched the Finance and Management Service – For Your Information (FMS-FYI) page, a resource site that will serve as the repository of the department’s finance and management-related resources.

DWSD Secretary Rex Gatchalian said the move was in response to President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.’s directive to digitalize all government processes.

“I am happy that I got invited to a digital push initiated by the FMS itself. From my understanding, this is a homegrown program developed within the department because we want to comply to the President’s directive to digitalize everything. Whenever I hear homegrown, that means you are innovating by yourself,” he said in his keynote speech during the launch on Feb. 14.

Developed by the DSWD’s Information and Communications Technology Management Service, the FMS-FYI can be accessed by various stakeholders to gather information and knowledge resources, such as published news and press releases, copies of speeches and quote cards, photo and video gallery, announcements, downloadable forms, copies of issuances, and standard operating procedures of the FMS.

“You want to better yourselves, you want to better the improvement in the delivery of services, that is why you made this homegrown FMS system and I’m very, very impressed because the very spirit is the spirit of innovation, the spirit of wanting to be better than what we are,” he said.

The DSWD expressed hope that its staff and other stakeholders would be able to efficiently use the FMS-FYI resource site on all DSWD finance-related concerns.

The FMS Resource Site could be accessed through bit.ly/FMSFYI.

The DSWD’s digitalization response came as it ranked third under the government service category of the “Philippines’ Best Employers 2023,” a survey and research conducted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in partnership with Statista, a Hamburg-based market research company.

Overall, the DSWD grabbed 54th place among the top 300 best employers in 2023.

The research covered about 100,000 recommendations across 27 industries, such as government services, aerospace and defense, banking and financial services, education, and health care.

The result of the ranking is a culmination of an extensive and comprehensive research project that covered thousands of evaluations, opinions of employees, and scores from other companies.

The result showed the DSWD’s positive relationship with its workforce while maintaining an effective delivery of social protection packages to its clients and stakeholders – the vulnerable, poor, and disadvantaged sectors of society.