Tanauan, Leyte -- The president of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines Leyte Chapter, Tanauan Mayor Roque A. Tiu will be one of the conference resource persons in the National Computer Center organized eLGU @ 5: A Knowledge Sharing Conference on May 15, 2008 at the Cebu Midtown Hotel in Cebu City.

National Computer Center Director Maria Teresa M. Camba informed that as one of the conference resource persons, Mayor Tiu will share his Local Government Unit's success story on the session "Showcasing your LGUs to the World 24/7."

Mayor Tiu's 15-minute presentation will cover how the LGU started its e-government development efforts, the implementation process, the benefits derived, the challenges encountered and how they were resolved, lessons learned and recommendations.

Mayor Tiu's initiatives in e-governance started with the LGU coordination with NEDA 8 headed by Director Buenaventura Go-soco, where the LGU was able to set up a website spending only P5,000.00 which was the prize for the winning web design. Mayor Tiu said that the contest for the LGU web design among students of various computer schools in Tacloban did not only paved the way for the LGU website, it also gave the students the opportunity to put into practice what they have learned in the classroom.

When the eLGU project of the National Computer Center was launched, Tanauan was not included in the first batch, it was in the second batch. Yet Tanauan was able to surpass the pilot municipalities and so Tanauan became the first municipality in Eastern Visayas with an e-Community Center.

The Website of Tanauan has been adjudged as the Best Municipal Website in Eastern Visayas in 2007. It was also the Region's entry to the Philippine Website Award in 2007 where it became one of the three finalists in the municipal level category.

At present, the computerization of the LGU is now fully implemented in the Real Property Taxation and in the business permits and licensing division.

Director Camba said that this is the fifth year of eLGU, the program that aims to jumpstart electronic governance in Local Government units.

The eLGU @ 5: A Knowledge Sharing Conference brings together the local government officials from over three hundred partner LGUs in one venue to share, learn from each other, continue collaboration and explore some new possibilities and next steps to strengthen e-government development efforts in local governance, Director Camba said.

Expected participants are local chief executives, vice local chief executives, assessors, treasurers and planning and development coordinators.