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The
country may be the texting capital of the world, based
on the sheer number of text messages Filipinos send to
one another on any given day, but that alone doesn’t
make us advanced in so far as use of information and
communication technology (ICT) for development is
concerned.
As a
matter of fact, the Philippines is ranked 102, eight
notches down from 94 in 2005, in the survey of 181
countries covered by the 2007 World Information Society
Report of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
On top
of the list is
South Korea,
categorized by the United Nations as a developing
economy, which had a digital opportunity index of 0.80
out of a possible 1.00, or double that of the
Asia-Pacific region’s average index of 0.40. At the
bottom is
Burma
with 0.04.
So what
makes
South Korea
tick? Its top ranking—it managed to overtake
Finland
for the distinction in 2002—is mainly due to the
government’s full support for ICT development.
South Korea
gave lower incentives to attract investors in ICT (with
its investment tax credit pegged at 6 percent to 10
percent), compared to the Philippines’ 75 percent to 100
percent and Singapore’s 33.3 percent.
South Korea
also provided a lower corporation tax rate of between 15
percent and 25 percent, compared to the Philippines’ 32
percent and Singapore’s 20 percent.
While
the Philippines offers tax holidays of four to five
years,
Korea
offers five, while Singapore offers five to 10 years.
The WSIS
report classifies
South Korea’s
average annual growth rate from 2001 to 2005 in terms of
ICT opportunity index as medium at 38.57 percent,
compared to the
Philippines’
26.87 percent. (The WSIS digital-opportunity index
measures the affordability of mobile phones, Internet
access, fixed telephone lines, personal computers and
high-speed broadband access.)
According to the report, fiscal incentives contribute to
an environment “for a vibrant ICT sector and for
maximizing the benefits of ICTs.”
The
report also notes that while there will be an estimated
three billion mobile phones and more than one billion
fixed lines around the world in 2008, “disparities and
inequality in access are evolving” with “the digital
divide… taking on new forms in terms of the differences
in the speed and quality of access to ICTs.”
With the
deregulation of the Philippine telecommunications
industry in the 1990s, access to telephones rose
steadily, resulting in a boom in mobile-phone use and
short messaging service or texting.
In 1994,
the
Philippines
formally linked to the Internet, allowing Filipinos to
hop onboard the information superhighway. But though the
infrastructure is present, access by the majority of the
population to ICT remains low.
The
importance of ICT is acknowledged in national
development plans for their socioeconomic potential, but
ICT and Internet governance is uneven due to limited
state capacity, lack of resources and control of
regulatory mechanisms by the dominant market players.
Compared
to the rest of Asean, the Philippines has one of the
highest education and literacy levels, but has a
moderate ratio of ICTs to population—which indicates the
relative socioeconomic standing of the country.
Our
fixed-line telephone penetration rates are one of the
lowest in Southeast Asia. However, other ICT indicators,
such as cell phone, PC and Internet-penetration rates
are close to the median of our neighbors.
Globally, as shown by the WSIS survey, the Philippines
constantly places in the middle or on the bottom half of
different international indices that attempt to measure
ICT access, availability and resources.
The
government has in place the National Information
Technology Plan for the 21st Century, which provides
directions for ICT over the long term. Because of its
overarching objectives and long-term perspective, it is
now the main reference document for other succeeding
policy instruments. The promotion of e-commerce has also
received a big boost with the passage by Congress in
2000 of the E-Commerce Act, or Republic Act 8792.
We now
have a Commission on Information and Communications
Technology (CICT) which functions as the primary policy,
planning, coordinating, implementing, regulating and
administrative entity of Government, and seeks to
develop integrated and strategic ICT systems and
reliable and cost-efficient communication facilities and
services.
But
clearly we must do more to make ICT serve our
development needs.
We need
to bridge the digital divide by promoting universal
access to ICTs. Even with high mobile telephony
penetration, there are glaring inequalities in ICT
ownership and use among households in different areas
and among income brackets. Access to personal computers
and especially Internet services are clearly limited to
the most urbanized areas.
Even
with the liberalization of the telecommunications
sector, problems persist which need strong regulatory
action. There is a lack of explicit rules that would
prevent the dominant players from controlling segments
of the ICT markets, allowing them to gain very high
price margins.
Apart
from this, there is a clear need to expand e-governance.
Widespread use of ICT can promote efficiency and
transparency in government.
We must
also accelerate ICT development to enhance our
competitiveness in the global market.
The
country has a relatively open business environment, but
the lack of adequate public and private investments in
telecommunications infrastructure will hinder further
economic growth. |
