Gov't flip-flopping on ICT – Angara

Following up his earlier criticism on Executive Order 47 downgrading the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), Senator Edgardo J. Angara has expressed alarm over the government’s flip-flopping on its commitment to promote the local ICT industry. “We are already the BPO capital of the world in terms of voice-based services. But instead of forging ahead by further empowering the CICT, we are pulling the rug from under it," he said. President Noynoy Aquino has signed EO 47 which reorganizes the CICT but effectively demotes its position in the bureaucracy. The CICT, currently an agency directly attached to the Office of the President, will be renamed the Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) and placed under the supervision of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST). The CICT has been the subject of several reorganizations since its creation in 2004 through EO 269. Angara also noted that the private sector, through the National Information and Communications Technology Confederation of the Philippines (NICP), is still backing the CICT. It has, in fact, urged Aquino to recall the EO. The NICT attested to the vital role played by the CICT in the growth of the information technology and business process outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry, saying that the CICT was a catalyst and enabler in emerging IT-BPO centers outside Metro Manila. The lawmaker said the United Nations International Telecommunication Union (ITU) 2010-2011 study on “Trends in Telecommunications Reform" shows that more than 80 percent of markets around the world have separate ICT regulatory agencies. In fact, the Philippines belongs to a minority in Southeast Asia that remain without a line department devoted to ICT, Angara observed. Angara, chair of the Senate Committee on Science, Technology and Engineering (Comste), has been pushing for the creation of the Department of Information Communications Technology (DICT). During the Fourteenth Congress, the bill was passed in the House of Representatives and was nearly passed on Third Reading in the Senate. Angara has re-filed the measure at the start of the Fifteenth Congress, and said he will continue to push for its passage going into the Second Regular Session. The DICT is envisioned to be the governing body for the ICT sector. It will serve as a one-stop shop for investors, and will be the primary policy, planning, coordinating, implementing, regulating and administrative body on strategic ICT development. “We have to move quickly and provide a strategic direction and stability for ICT in the country if we want to sustain our momentum and avoid sending wrong signals to investors," Angara stressed. The BPO industry currently contributes 5 percent to the Philippines’ gross domestic product (GDP), and is expected to rake in revenues of at least $50 billion, or 11 percent of GDP, by 2020. — Newsbytes.ph