ICT councils implore solons to back DICT

An organization of ICT councils in the country has put out an open letter urging senators to throw their support behind a proposed law creating the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) currently pending in the upper chamber. The National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP), through its chair Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, said in the letter to the legislators that there is an “intrinsic need for the DICT". “[W]ithout a DICT, we strongly believe that programs and projects to maximize ICT as a tool for social and economic development, education, health, governance, environment and other concerns will never trickle down to our cities and provinces," the letter said. Without a permanent Philippine champion for ICT, the NICP said the country will always rank among the lowest in global competitiveness and innovation. “With your support to the DICT bill, we can now ensure that the gains and opportunities in the ICT sector are mainstreamed and spread to the countryside, to all provinces and cities," the group told the senators. The councils said ICT development is currently more pronounced in Metro Manila, leaving the former Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) to help the provinces through the NICP for the past years. The group said that five cities outside of Metro Manila are in the Tholons International Top 100 Cities in the World for Outsourcing (Cebu 9th, Davao 69th, Sta. Rosa 88th, Iloilo, 9th, and Bacolod 100th). Metro Clark and Cebu are among the centers of excellence in ICT, it said. Other cities are already seeing the gradual growth of ICT-enabled industries in their respective areas, to include voice (contact centers) and non-voice (health information management, medical and legal transcription, financial back-office support, accounting, software development, animation, game development and many more) and IT engineering, it added.