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The government is set to spend more than P300 million to lay down its own fiber-optic cables this year as part of efforts to modernize government services and make the bureaucracy more efficient.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on Monday announced that it had released nearly P900 million to the Department of Science and Technology’s Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO), the state’s main IT governing body.

Apart from fiber-optic cables, which can provide high-speed Internet connectivity, the government also plans to spend P427.8 million to establish and operate its own data centers. These will serve as the central hub for all computerized government services.

“Our continued investments in high-impact ICT programs are central to the Aquino administration’s good governance agenda,” Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said in a statement.

“We remain committed to harnessing technology and developing relevant mechanisms to improve the way government agencies work with each other. Data security won’t be an issue since we’ll be using common application systems across the bureaucracy,” he said.

A total of P878.5 million was released to the ICTO for various IT projects, the DBM said. Other major components, aside from the fiber-optic cables and data centers, were for the improvement of existing government applications and capacity building for government workers. Paolo G. Montecillo