MANILA, Philippines--While national government agencies have their respective IT projects, what is lacking is interoperability between these government systems.

"These projects are already in place but there is lack of coordination. These systems really have to interoperate," said Lilia Guillermo, deputy commissioner for the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).

Interoperability was discussed during a forum sponsored by Microsoft Philippines and attended by government representatives, including Guillermo, who also heads the CIO Forum, a group composed of CIOs and IT managers in the public sector.

In particular, Guillermo noted an ongoing computerization project by the Civil Service Commission to build a database of government workers numbering more than 1.3 million individuals.

"This project, for example, would need to be interfaced with those by the GSIS [Government Service Insurance System] and PhilHealth [Philippine Health Insurance Corp.]," she said.

Guiilermo added: "Maybe the CICT [Commission on Information and Communications Technology] could spearhead this next step. The important thing is these projects already exist."

Tess Roberto, director for the National Computer Center (NCC), meanwhile, noted that inter-agency rivalry can restrict interoperability.

She cited as an example a previous project dubbed "FinLink" that would have linked data between finance-related agencies such as the Social Security System, GSIS and BIR.

"But that project fizzled out. Some agencies simply do not want to share databases," said Roberto. This is also a reason that was cited as a hindrance to government plans of creating a national ID system.

The NCC official stressed the importance of streamlining IT operations in government. "Maybe the government cannot do it alone and should work with the private sector on enforcing interoperability."