Philippines’ ICT strategy to be unveiled in June

MANILA, Philippines—The Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) is set to present the Philippine Digital Strategy to Malacañang within June, which is the national ICT month, its chairman, Ivan John E. Uy, said.

Uy said the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector would play a key role in the Philippine Digital Strategy. The commission has long been working with industry group Business Processing Association of the Philippines, or BPAP, to build up the capacity of BPO companies to meet challenges to growth, including dwindling supply of ICT-competitive, English-speaking talents.

Aside from supporting BPO growth, an ICT strategy is necessary to deliver government services to people in remote areas. The government must provide them access to social services and economic opportunities made possible by ICT in order to achieve the “inclusive growth,” which is the cornerstone of the present medium-term development strategy.

The CICT, Uy said, has been putting up computer centers all over the country, mostly in barangays (villages) located in rural areas, in cooperation with local government units.

According to Uy, the computer centers are basically Internet cafes that double as resource centers for online education, tele-medicine, e-agriculture (where farmers and fishermen can go to check online sites for market prices, available farming technologies, and weather reports).

The commission has also been building computer laboratories in depressed areas such as Smokey Mountain, where scavengers trained on ICT have graduated from vocational IT courses. From there, many have taken up jobs in IT companies. The CICT also offers training for the deaf and the blind for future hiring by BPOs.

Some BPOs are hesitant but the CICT has been encouraging companies to put together teams of 50 people to make their investment in special equipment pay off.

“We really need support from all sectors,” Uy said.

ICT development is part of the Philippine Development Plan put together by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) to steer the Philippines to a 7- to 8-percent GDP growth over the medium term.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Cayetano W. Paderanga said in an earlier interview that sectoral plans have been envisioned to concretize the government’s strategy in line with the Philippine Development Plan.

So far, NEDA has received the labor development plan and is awaiting those of other sectors especially the priority sectors: ICT and tourism.

ICT, along with tourism and agro-industry, is expected to play a leading role in employment creation. The Philippines targets an annual average of 1 million jobs.

The Philippine economy staged a strong recovery in 2010 as it grew by 7.6 percent, boosted by swift export growth and election spending.