By Rizal Raoul Reyes
WITH the establishment of the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), the people must temper their outlook and realize the new Cabinet body faces a herculean task in tackling the challenges in the technology sector.
“I know everybody is excited that, finally, the bill has been passed,” Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) Deputy Executive Director Monchito B. Ibrahim said. “I urged the people to manage their expectations, as the new body will have its full hands in the first 60 days in implementing the rules and regulations.”
After a long lobby by interest groups, President Aquino signed on May 24 Republic Act (RA) 10844, or the DICT Act of 2015.
In his letter to Mildred Yovela S. Umali-Hermogenes, Undersecretary Louis Napoleon C. Casambre said the creation of a DICT, a Cabinet-level government agency, is “supportive to the clamor of various stakeholders for its creation to orchestrate a holistic solution.”
Prior to the signing of the DICT Act, the ICT concerns of government under the ICTO were placed under the purview of the Department of Science and Technology.
The DICT “will be at the forefront in leading our country and our citizens forward into the digital economy,” Casambre, ICTO executive director, said in his May 18 letter to Hermogenes, the deputy executive secretary for legal affairs of the Office of the President. The ICTO provided the BusinessMirror a copy of Casambre’s letter to Hermogenes only on May 26.
The same day, Ibrahim told the BusinessMirror that the DICT will have the National Telecommunications Commission, National Privacy Commission, and Commission on the Prevention of Cybercrime as attached agencies.
Focus
ACCORDING to Ibrahim, the DICT will have to focus on four key areas to develop ICT in the country: e-government, infrastructure, accessibility and innovation.
Ibrahim said the government must accelerate the implementation of e-government service to enhance delivery of public service. He added that an ICT must also be used to achieve greater transparency and combatting corruption to achieve a better quality of governance.
He also stressed that the government must lead in building the ICT infrastructure around the country.
“The state should take the initiative, because private sector will not be interested in building the facilities in isolated places because of the absence of profit.”
Internet
TO bridge the digital divide among 110 million Filipinos, Ibrahim said there must be democratization in accessing the Internet among the population to spread learning from the cities to the remotest areas of the country.
“We must ensure all sectors must have the same level of access to information, health and education services, based on the Internet that covers the disabled, marginalized and the indigenous peoples.”
Aside from focusing on the implementing rules and regulations, the DICT might list amendments to existing laws regarding Internet service, Ibrahim said at the sidelines of a forum on disaster resiliency. He said these amendments are needed “to make Internet a basic service to enable the government to implement the reforms needed.”
At present, Internet service cannot be regulated because it is classified as a value-added service, Ibrahim explained.
Organization
A STATEMENT issued by Malacañang accompanying the copy of the law said the DICT shall be headed by a secretary, who will be assisted by three undersecretaries and four assistant secretaries.
The new law also provides that two of the three undersecretaries and two of the four assistant secretaries shall be career officers. One of the four assistant secretaries shall also be a licensed professional electronics engineer, the Palace statement said.
“The law also requires that the secretary, as well as the undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, have at least seven years of competence and expertise in ICT, information-technology service management, information-security management, cybersecurity, data privacy, e-commerce, or human capital development in the ICT sector.”
This setup is what Casambre described as a government agency with “higher authority and stronger organizational structure to be able to function and fully operate as a line agency, and be able to effectively implement programs and projects.”
“With the scenario that more and more government agencies are becomingly involved in addressing ICT-related concerns [i.e., data privacy, Internet regulation, cyber security, cyber online protection], the existence of a department-level ICT government agency is critical and imperative to strongly coordinate and harmonize the dynamics between and among government agencies, and to ensure that implementation of needed ICT programs and projects will be streamlined and become seamless,” Casambre said.
Innovation
IBRAHIM said the DICT also has to push innovation to help create the right ecosystem that will allow digital innovation to happen in the Philippines.
Although the country is acknowledged as major center in the global business-processing outsourcing industry, he said the Philippines has to produce the industries that can be recognized as wholly Filipino created start-ups.
(With Dennis D. Estopace)