A group loosely referred to as the Startup PH guys launched a website that aims to offer a “better” version of an existing government portal.
“It was a silly idea. [I thought I could] make a better gov.ph website,” Jason Torres, a developer and a member of the Startup PH community who is now based in the United Kingdom, told me in a chat interview.
Torres was referring to the current government portal, which he says is very old.
“If you look at the gov.ph, the senate, and congress [House of Representatives] websites, they all look outdated and embarrassing. (sic) Lack of love,” he continued.
With the help of a few volunteer friends, he managed to produce Bettergov.ph, a website that aims to make the government more transparent, efficient, and accessible to its citizens.
With a seemingly bold and big mission, bettergov.ph is a product of a growing frustration and “anger” among Filipino citizens, following news of widespread corruption in government projects.
The website costs around PHP 3,000 to create, and it incurs no cost to Filipino citizens, he said.
Starting a movement
Torres’ website project has now evolved into a movement.
It started with four volunteers. However, after launching this tech civic project, Torres said he was able to gather 75 volunteers at this writing.
Is he planning to turn this project over to the government eventually?
“Honestly, this is the part where I think, I don’t care. I’ll just make things better. We don’t need permission,” he added. “We need to take matters into our own hands.”
What kind of problems is bettergov.ph hoping to tackle?
“Besides building better and accessible sites. I think the movement around supporting similar initiatives is the key here. We see people building civictech projects recently, and supporting those projects is the goal,” he said.
“There are plenty of creative ideas and projects people can make, from transparency projects to better data display and visualisation of government data for various industries; it’s not limited to the current issues right now. Although that’s equally important, this should be an ongoing thing.”
Other ideas are now being discussed on this website. One can submit an idea through this website, and hopefully, the community can help develop it.
One idea talks about developing a way to “rate politicians.” Another proposes a “Glassdoor for government agencies,” where citizens can anonymously rate and review government agencies they’ve worked for. There is another idea that involves a government reporting app utilizing blockchain technology to track and monitor projects with complete transparency and accountability.
How you can help
Torres has started a Discord channel and is inviting people to submit more ideas through this online channel.
So far, he has seen individuals from the government and private sector raising their hands, saying that they can help Torres evolve the bettergov.ph project into something bigger.
“We have seen a surge of wonderful and impressive tech ideas being launched recently. Our goal is to support these various initiatives, promote, consolidate, and empower these builders!” he said.
Torres said he will help volunteer infrastructure, servers, AI credits, and tools. He also wants to help organize tech hackathons. He is also willing to share data and API endpoints and point the community to the right people and resource persons.
Finally, he is willing to offer mentorship from industry veterans, while also helping people find tech teams to develop some ideas.
And it looks like the ball is rolling fast for this initiative that is turning out to be a movement.
“I’m angry, you’re angry, but we can contribute in our own ways, no matter how little it is. We can do amazing things together. Grassroots style. Open source,” he said in a Facebook post.
“I personally am committed to putting time, resources, and money into this initiative. I will continue to build relentlessly, without anyone’s permission. Open source, public, high-quality sites,” he declared.
