“ICT is a tool to boost a country’s overall competitiveness by improving the efficiency of production processes across sectors and industries, accelerating the growth of knowledge-based services, and empowering people to access unprecedented sources of information and markets,” said Sen. Edgardo Angara in a recent media statement.
Angara, who chairs the Senate committee on science and technology, said various governments around the world are drafting policies and developing institutions to boost ICT. For instance, Germany has an interministerial agency handling information technology policies, while France and Portugal have established one central coordinating body, directly answerable to the chief executive.
Angara lamented the fact that the country lacks a coherent, long-term policy for ICT development, as well as an agency that will implement the strategy.
“ICT has proven to be a significant catalyst for national development, without which coordination between government offices and partnerships with concerned agencies will be very difficult. The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), which we are pushing for in the Senate, shall coordinate with various public and private agencies to facilitate different government initiatives such as the e-government objectives in particular and national objectives in general,” said Angara.
At the same time, governance experts called for eliminating the telecommunication component of the Department of Transportation and Communications and transfer it to the proposed Department of Information Communications and Technology while the rest will be merged with the Department of Public Works and Highways. The experts said there will be greater synergy for government if the DPWH will handle the transportation segment because it is the caretaker of the roads, ports and airports.
“Through the establishment of DICT, we hope to further promote ICT in the country as a tool to create jobs, improve government services, and empower Filipinos. During this particularly difficult period, we need every advantage that we can get. ICT is one way for us to have that advantage. The data and information, if we are able to utilize it properly, will allow us to make faster and better decisions, and react to crisis better, whether it be financial, or health related, or weather and crop forecasting. The possibilities of a unified ICT system in the country, led by the DICT, are endless,” said Angara.
To sustain the operation of the DICT, an e-Government Fund will be created for the department which will serve as a special fund for cross-agency and government-initiated ICT projects.
The DICT will be the primary policy, planning, coordinating, implementing, regulating and administrative entity of the executive branch of the government for ICT development.
The fund will be used to support and cofinance projects that enable the government to expand its ability to conduct activities electronically and provide frontline services through the development and implementation of innovative uses of the Internet or other emerging technologies.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Rizal Raoul Reyes
Quelle/Source: Business Mirror, 06.01.2010
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