The Ministry of Human Settlements and Development, through the Policy and Coordination Division, led by Chief Abdulhamid C. Alawi, Jr., conducted an Interagency Records Training at the MHSD Operations Center, Bishop Mongeau Street, Cotabato City on June 18, 2021.

As resource speaker, Chief Alawi discussed several topics centered on records management, one of which was on Guidelines of the General Records Disposition Schedule standardized by the National Archives of the Philippines.

The National Archives of the Philippines is an agency of the Republic of the Philippines mandated to collect, store, preserve and make available archival records of the Government and other primary sources pertaining to the history and development of the country.

Other discussed topics were standards of archiving observed when filing salient documents, which included the 5S, a tool of Japanese origin for organizing the workplace in a clean, efficient and safe manner to enhance productivity, visual management and to ensure the introduction of standardized working practices.

These standards were Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu, and Shitsuke, which mean, respectively, tidiness, orderliness, cleanliness, standardized clean up, and discipline. Participants were encouraged to shape their own recordkeeping operations based the efficient tool.

Throughout his lectures, Chief Alawi shared his own experiences in dealing with recordkeeping, archiving, and document disposal, all the while engaging with participants as much as possible by comparing practices between offices. He advised the representatives on better record management that should be observed by every affiliated office, not just the ones focused on recordkeeping such as the attendees.

Participants were then encouraged to host future orientations to disseminate what they have learned from the training to their fellow staff as to enhance their office’s overall record management practices and standards.

Along with the MHSD Records Section, in attendance were representatives from the Bangsamoro Transition Authority’s Records Management Division, as well as the Bangsamoro Library and Archives, and Records Division of the Office of the Chief Minister.