The Philippine government on Thursday, January 16, launched data.gov.ph, a website that consolidates the data from different government agencies and makes it available in formats meant for easy downloading and use.
In a video explaining the Open Data Philippines initiative, the site aims to "institutionalize open, transparent, accountable, and participatory governance" by digitizing hard copies of agency data into computer-readable formats, namely .csv files, .txt documents, and Excel spreadsheets. These files are meant to be shareable, and certain portions of the site itself have widgets for sharing the site on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks. (READ: New in gov’t: Open data, cashless purchases)
The site has 7 main pages aside from the front page serving as hubs: About, Contact, News, Data, Infographics, Apps, and Community.
Users can also choose to create an account on the site to use some of the site’s services, such as the Community hub, though a membership to the site is unneeded to access the data and infographics pages.