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Monday, September 13, 2004
RP lacks infotech infra to serve people: ICT4D
DESPITE the government’s commitment, the Philippines still lacks information technology (IT) infrastructure to enable it to use IT in serving its people efficiently.
This is why the country does not rate among the global leaders in the overall United Nations (UN) e-Government Readiness Index despite the Philippines’ “very high” ranking in the Web Index and the e-Participation Index surveys conducted by the UN, Emmanuel Lallana, member of the steering committee of the Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICT4D) said.
During the Visayas conference of the ICT4D at the Department of Education (DepEd)-Ecotech Center Friday, he said that according to the report of the Congressional Oversight Committee on e-Commerce (Cocec) headed by Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr., the Philippines performed well in the UN surveys.
It ranked fourth in the South and Eastern Asia region—behind Singapore, Korea and Japan but ahead of Malaysia, Brunei, Thailand, Indonesia and China.
“Why the Philippines does not rate among the global leaders? The simple and obvious explanation is deficient infrastructure.
“According to the UN survey, whereas Japan and Korea have high levels of telecommunications infrastructure of .626 and .675, respectively, the Philippines’ level of infrastructure —.064— is only at a fraction of their level,” Lallana said.
But he assured that the government is doing its best to fully implement e-governance in the country.
According to the survey among 26 national government agencies conducted by Cocec in 2003 to determine the extent of e-government implementation in the country, all agencies surveyed had websites that provide information, and these were already interactive.
“Government websites have come a long way since they were first assessed in 2001, during which only 20 percent were interactive websites. In the recent Cocec study, all 26 websites are at least interactive with one already transactional,” Lallana said.
Cocec was created to oversee the implementation of the E-Commerce Act. The E-Commerce Act mandates all government departments, bureaus, offices and agencies, as well as all government-owned and -controlled corporations to offer their services online by using electronic communications and digital information processing technology.
The agencies surveyed include the Department of Agrarian Reform, Department of Agriculture, Department of Budget and Management, DepEd, Department of Energy, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Finance, Department of Health, Department of Tourism, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Science and Technology, Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and Department of Interior and Local Government.
Lallana said the fact that the computerization projects of these agencies are being funded by the national budget is a manifestation of the government’s commitment to e-governance.
“But the status of e-government development today is much more reflective of inherited capacities in the areas of infrastructure and human capital development, as well as of inherited institutions and policy focus, than of the determination of governments to seize new technological opportunities to support human development-focused change,” he said. JBN
(September 13, 2004 issue)
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