Business sector welcomes creation of DICT, to usher in digital economy

The business community expects the new Department of ICT (information and communications technology) to usher in the digital economy as a Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) would, but with sharper teeth.

With just over a month before they bow out of office, the Aquino administration has enacted the long-awaited law creating the Department of ICT (DICT).

That should leave the former DOTC, to be downsized and renamed simply as the Department of Transportation (DOT), free to sort out the country’s transportation mess, regulating 8 million motor vehicles and 1 million registered for-hire vehicles catering to over 100 million passengers.

Local telcos welcomed the DICT, hoping it can finally provide a fitting policy framework to manage the information highway, boost the nation’s internet speed, hasten the deployment of cell sites and formulate a cyber-security scheme, among other things.

While ICT is the Philippines’ third biggest dollar earner, after electronics and Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) remittances, no state department has actually overseen the sector.

Income from outsourcing is projected to reach $25 billion by next year. Filipinos have become digital citizens, with 114 million cellphone subscriptions versus the 105 million population and 4 in 10 have access to the Internet.

Yet until now, there’s no agency to prioritize ICT initiatives, institutionalize e-government and manage the country's ICT environment.

Earlier, legislators maintained that the DICT

will not create another huge bureaucracy with the usual red tape and expenses. It’ supposed to have the same, if not smaller, budgetary footprint and will just use the budget of offices to be abolished.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), National Privacy Commission, and the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordination Center (CICC) will be DICT-attached agencies.

The DICT will also absorb the Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO); National Computer Center (NCC); National Computer Institute (NCI); Telecommunications Office (TELOF); National Telecommunications Training Institute (NTTI); and, all DOTC operating units with functions dealing with communications.

Fact is, DICT is a more apt body in today’s environment because it’s difficult for a research and development-oriented agency like the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) to enforce significant ICT reforms in the country.

DOST Undersecretary and ICT Office executive director Louis Casambre have underscored this issue even before.

Quasi-judicial agencies like the NTC cannot come under the DOST since the former’s function is incompatible with DOST’s Research and Development mandate.

Ideally, DICT should be like the DOTC or the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) with line agencies implementing government policies, he pointed out.