by Johana Vi E. Gasga, Rey Anthony Ostria, Laarni Grageda
Responding to the clamor of the freshmen students regarding the two-semester delayed release of their Identification cards (IDs), Glenn Narvaez, Office of the Student Services (OSS) Dean, attributed the delayed approval of a feasibility study on Bicol University’s (BU) procurement of its own Digital ID system.
The proposal took four months of further study before BU President Fay Lauraya signed its approval to procure digital ID machine for the freshmen students, new BU personnel and lost ID replacements. The results of the study were passed to Prof. Jerry Bigornia, BU, Vice President for Production (VPPA).
On the other hand, College Business Manager (CBM) 1 Antonio Olaguer said that the recommendation for the approval was sent to the OP as early as July 30, and it was only in November that Lauraya approved it. “I don’t know if there were deficiencies in the study (of the proposal) that it took months for the president to approve it,” Olaguer added.
However, Lauraya said, “I have already asked the VPPA to speed up the procurement of the ID machine.”
Although the University had been producing IDs for the past five years, the Office of the President (OP) still requested the OSS and the CBM to propose a feasibility study, “to make sure that the money will not come at a loss in the procurement of the IDs,” explained Narvaez.
Through the procurement of the digital ID machine, BU will no longer need to sub- contract a service provider in producing IDs in the next years.
For the past five years, the OSS, together with its service provider, AZITSUROG Inc., has been producing IDs for the University. But by March this year, Narvaez assured that BU will be producing its own IDs.
Financial, market estimates
According to the study, the University is projected to spend some P397,000 in pur- chasing the machine and in facilitating the fabrication of the IDs. The budget will be sourced out from the F-164 or ID fee collected from the first year students during the enrollment in the first semester.
“The OSS will be using the P75 ID fee to cover the expenses for the procurement as well as the maintenance of the machine,” Narvaez said when asked about the source of fund in the procurement of the new machine. He added that for the succeeding years, the office will only be using minimal materials and will only purchase the consumables.
Said ID fee will cover the payment for one dual-sided printer with lamination stage, a Lenovo notebook, an ID database, a web camera, a Genius signature pad, card acces- sories for 4,500 freshmen, and a two-month transportation and labor costs for two personnel in charge of operating the machine.
The OSS will also seek out prospective customers and advertise the printing of the digital IDs to other schools and offices in Legazpi to generate income starting 2010.
In the proposal read by Olaguer, the digital data stored in the ID will be utilized to give added value to the students in terms of security and other services, which will not be possible if it was just an ordinary ID.
It was also indicated in the proposal that the machine is estimated to have a con- servative, economic life of three years. Then, it would be replaced with a newer model to improve the efficiency of producing digital IDs.
Some P 20, 000 is projected for the maintenance of the machine in its second year. An additonal 15 percent increase in the following years is expected.
Meanwhile, Narvaez also requested the procurement of another machine for the sat- ellite campuses aside from the machine in the main campus. “We will be having an ‘on- site’ machine aside from the one in the main campus. The ‘on-site’ machine will be going to the satellite campuses where production of the IDs will take place separately,” Narvaez mentioned.
At press time, the OSS is in the bidding process of the procurement of the machine after it gained the approval of the President.
