GOVERNMENT agencies and information and communications technology (ICT) industry stakeholders will launch on December 10 a country-wide initiative to push further digital transformation from local to the national level.
The National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP) and the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), with the support of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG,) and GeiserMaclang Marketing Communications Inc. (GMCI), will kick off the “Digital Filipino, Digital Cities, Digital Philippines” campaign through a forum on how going digital will help the country achieve economic prosperity.
To be attended by national and local government leaders, industry captains, industrialists from foreign chambers of commerce and media professionals, the one-day event will be the single, largest, most important virtual conference that will also tackle head on the issues of business, technology, and countryside development.
Digital transformation remains a long journey for the Philippines, according to DILG Undersecretary Epimaco Densing III.
“Unfortunately, my estimate is, as of today, we’re only at 30 percent,” he told reporters during the recent webinar for the upcoming online summit.
With this is mind, the “Digital Pilipinas” campaign is envisioned to bring improvement and economy to the countryside.
“We cannot live off cities like Cebu and Manila, but we need more cities like Davao,” NICP President Michael Tiu Lim noted, while suggesting a way to do it is to “upskill the current work force so that we would have the necessary talents for them to hire.”
While only a few of the local government units (LGUs) has already adopted the digital age, some are either in the process or about to embrace it.
“There are other LGUs that are very much active in terms of their digital transformation internally,” DICT Director Emmy Delfin said, while noting that a lot of them “are really stepping up and, in fact, Covid-19 has helped accelerate their move to really embrace digital transformation.”
The Philippines has seen significant progress in improving Internet connectivity, boosting digital security and regulation, and supporting tech education. In 2018, the Ease of Doing Business Act was signed and made effective to empower small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to shift to the digital age, while LGUs are mandated to computerize their basic licensing and permit system until 2022.
Before digitalization, it’s estimated that the Philippines has been losing at least $2 billion to $3 billion in potential investments, or equivalent to 100,000 to 200,000 jobs yearly, because many of the foreign investors have been frustrated in the way of doing, registering or opening their business here.
“If we can improve our ease of doing business, if we can improve our information and communications technology, then putting the infrastructure, getting the right mindset of the local chief executives, including the ordinary Filipinos, we can really move and, hopefully, bring the country prosperity,” Densing said.
Investment in the upskilling of the individual Filipino can spiral into regional growth and then build into a massive nationwide effort.
“What we want to communicate is that there is now a national movement to make tech. What better way to start ‘tech-ing’ up the country than by tech-ing up the communities and our cities. We envision that there will no longer be a digital divide, regardless of where you are: no municipality is ever too far because of technology,” stressed Amor Maclang, “Digital Pilipinas” convener and co-founder of GMCI.