Telegram nearly kaput in digital age

Believe it or not, in the age of email, texting, and stiff competition among telecom firms, the government still runs telegraph stations in Metro Manila.

Thirty telegram stations, to be exact. And for reasons as crystal clear as the latest funky ring tone, their revenues have all but shrunk to a dot… dot… dot.

It took a 2010 Commission on Audit (COA) report to point out that these stations have been operating at a loss thanks to their continued use of a 19th century technology.

In its audit of the Telecommunications Office (Telof) of the National Capital Region, COA said the 30 telegraph stations cost P20.28 million to operate last year but their total income added up to only P1.37 million.

Remarkably impractical

Such operations, the audit report said, had become “remarkably uneconomical and impractical.”

“The continuous operation (of these stations) would drain the limited/scarce resources of the government,” the report added.

The COA went on to state the obvious: “The data show that in the NCR, the (telegraph) services of the Telof are not in demand because the present communications technology facilities in the area have overtaken the system with the emergence of cell phone texting and other organized service providers or money transfers.”

The Telof is an agency under the umbrella of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), which is under the Office of the President.

Conversion plans

The COA report nevertheless acknowledged Telof’s “plan” to convert 13 of the telegraph stations into community e-centers offering Internet access as well as e-mail and fax services.

Telof currently runs two such centers in the Payatas and Roces areas in Quezon City, the report noted.

Telof also explained that while its telegraph services may not be cash cows, the size of their income should not be the only factor to consider in classifying whether a government office is already nonperforming.

The agency said it still provides services to the COA itself, the Commission on Elections, the Supreme Court, the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Its e-centers also provide computer literacy training for out-of-school youths, housewives, senior citizens and barangay officials, it said.

But the COA report said Telof should make sure its plans keep up with advances in communications technology and provide training for its personnel.