DICT bares digitalization strategy to hasten connectivity
WITH the country’s full digitalization over the next five years projected to cost government an estimated P100 billion, a senior lawmaker on Wednesday said the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has assured Congress that it will implement a three-pronged strategy to speed up nationwide connectivity.
Camsur Rep. and Commission on Appointments (CA) majority leader Lray Villafuerte said Secretary Ivan John Uy informed legislators during a recent committee hearing by the CA on his designation as DI CT secretary that with his department having what he called a“small” outlay of P2.5 billion for digitalization in next year’s proposed national budget, his office is eyeing three strategies to hasten the country’ s digital connectivity starting in 2023, in tandem with the private sector and local government units (LGUS), especially those in urban areas.
Villafuerte said it was “about time” for all sectors to work together in hastening nationwide digitalization “because the past DICT secretaries were not really pushing for it.”
Uy told Villafuerte that with his office’s “very limited budget” for the national digitalization program, he will push for a much higher DICT budget for 2024 and onwards so his office can speed up the country’s digitalization plan over the next five years.
But while waiting for his hoped-for higher di ct digitalization out lay starting in 2024, Uy informed lawmakers about his strategies to accelerate the country’s digital switch next year by working separatelywith the private sector—via possible public-private partnerships (Ppps)—and affluent urban-based lg us in pursing connectivity projects.
The DICT’S third strategy, he said, is to prioritize in his department’s limited digitalization budget the funding of connectivity projects in remote communities or geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAS) where digital connectivity would make the “most profound effect” on the people living in those places.
“And because we got a very small budget [for 2023], we need to spend it very, very prudently and very, very wisely po. So what we’re doing, is we are investing actually in the areas that would have the most profound effect on the population, and these are the GIDA areas,” Uy said.