POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES

College of Political Science and Public Administration

Department of Public Administration
Sta. Mesa, Manila




Reaction Paper
on

THE PHILIPPINE DIGITAL STRATEGY
TRANFORMATION 2.0: DIGITALLY EMPOWERED
NATION





Submitted by:

REHOM P. PIMENTEL
BPAG 4-1



Submitted to:

PROF. JAYSON SALVADOR
Comparative Civil Service System




March 1, 2014

A digitally empowered, innovative, globally competitive and prosperous society where
everyone has reliable, affordable and secure information access in the Philippines. A government
that practices accountability and excellence to provide responsive online citizen-centered
services. A thriving knowledge economy through public-private partnership.

The notion of transforming the Philippines as a whole into a digital world is a very
progressive and optimistic idea. I am seeing this as not only transforming the country into an e-
government oriented bureaucracy but rather as a whole country itself since this vision
encompasses the participation of the public and the corporate world. Therefore, this proposal is
not just concentrated to the government itself but rather to the nation as a whole.
This vision of Philippine Digital Strategy (PDS) has been planned since 2006 from the
time of Arroyo Regime. This innovation is clearly manifested in her attempt to apply ICT in all
government offices from national to local level when the ZTE Broadband Deal has became one
of her plans. This program was a very brilliant idea that will surely enhance and improve the
Philippine bureaucracy but, unfortunately, this has been also an avenue for corruption since this
project incurs a very large government resource allocation. For all we know, for every good
policy, there is always a room for negativism in which, at the end of the day, could result into
goodness or badness depending on how or where they (the policy makers) are going to focus
their knowledge and efforts.
The use of e-governance or the application of Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) to the country is subject to different speculations. Firstly, the applicability of
this policy to the country, secondly, the assurance that this policy will end up to a positive result
or at least the majority of such is for betterness, thirdly, as to whether the government shall
prioritize this or there are other things which are more needed to prioritize, and lastly, what is the
best mechanism, policy or program that will help to address the target of this paper or achieve its
goal.
The Philippines is an archipelagic country composed of thousands of Islands and Islets.
Aside from that, we have also a diverse culture and language or dialects and lastly, we are so
much religion-oriented. Those differences are one of the common factors why we have a very
slow progress when it comes to economic development. One of the main reasons for that is
logistics. Having an archipelagic country makes it hard for the national government to reach
those citizens residing on remote areas in terms of service delivery. In that case, most of all the
innovations and improvement were all established at the National Capital Region, thus, having a
centralized form of government. In terms of decision making, it is hard for us to come with a
unanimous decision since we have different orientation in terms of culture or norms. What is
acceptable to the people in Metro Manila may not be acceptable to those living in the provinces,
the passage of the RH Bill for example. The government finds it hard also to communicate to
other people around the country since we are using different dialects. Another thing is that, the
Philippines is religion-oriented country which is focused on Roman Catholic. For instance, in
some government institutions, they are displaying or even part already of the construction those
religious images or rituals that the Roman Catholic has without even thinking that not all the
people in the Philippines are Catholic. The point is we have to consider that there are still other
religions or religious sect, such as Islam and all other non-Catholic Christians, in which those
practices could be destructing, or embarrassing on their part. This notion is also present in school
wherein sometimes the students are instructed to recite prayers used by the Catholic, Angelus for
example. All of these factors should be considered in implement the Philippine Digital Strategy,
because if not, it would result to an outcome different to what we have expected. It is not a trial
and error policy because we are going to allocate a very large amount of public funds. This
policy may affected by the culture, language, religion and demographic orientation of the people.
It is not new to everyone that the Philippine Government is suffering to Ethical
Leadership wherein negative bureaucratic behaviour has already become a practice of different
government officials in their positions. You can now just count on your fingers those politicians
who still value or believe in ethical or moral leadership. That notion is very detrimental
especially when adhering to big-time policies since that means big allocation of peoples money
also. In this kind of policies is where corrupt politicians find their opportunity to take advantage
for the fulfilment of their self-interest, just like what I have stated in first of this paper ZTE
Broadband Deal. So the assurance that the PDS would be safe from abusive acts or decisions of
the policy makers and policy implementors is still in doubt.
In identifying the most important problem of the country that we need to address as soon
as possible, here comes poverty. The governments decisions and actions are all boiling down to
the notion of addressing poverty. We keep on studying or researching on how we are going to
hold up the country from the poverty. Therefore, the question here is that, how does this
mechanism, the Philippine Digital Strategy, would help contribute in addressing poverty or
lessening it for instance.
There are many factors that contribute to the cause of poverty. I argue that education is
most important one that the government should prioritize. It is clearly stated in the Philippine
Constitution that the government has to give the highest allocation to education. It is because
education plays a very important role in the country. From the very basic concept, how these
people who are not educated would find their jobs that could sustain a family? Another
consideration, no matter how modernized the facilities we used in the government, if the
government employees are not educated enough to use such stuffs, computers, automated
equipments and the like for instance, it would not be for betterment also, resulting to government
employees returning to the old practices in government which is manual. Thus, education is
really a big factor that is needed to be considered. The government keep on saying that they are
increasing the budget for education but the students and the facilitators also keep on saying that it
is not enough to sustain a quality education that is worldwidely competitive. Another thing is the
opportunity that the government is providing for the graduates, for the degree holders and
experts we have. Due to inefficiency of the government in providing such, people are forced to
work abroad for the sake of proper and enough salary to sustain a quality life. Such phenomena
resulted to a very detrimental issue in terms of working force of the country which is known as
brain-drain. I also believe that the form of government is also a very big factor in addressing
poverty. The form of government we have is a centralized one where all the decisions, policies,
programs and most importantly, the budget allocations are all centered to Metro Manila and
leaving those remote areas in the provinces undeveloped or not even being civilized. That is the
main reason why yearly people in the provinces keep migrating to Metro Manila because all the
opportunities that the government is providing are all centrally made in Metro Manila, thus,
making it over populated. You cannot blame the people because it is their nature to do
everything to survive and sustain their family. The solution is to decentralize the government so
that people wouldnt mind anymore going to Metro Manila since opportunities are now made
available to every areas of the country.
Having all these discussions, the question that does the Philippine Digital Strategy (PDS)
would really help address poverty is still in doubt. When making a decision, we have to analyze
it very well and consider those factors that may lead to the failure or success of it. People say that
it is not bad to try one thing, but I say that we have to consider those possibilities that could
happen at the end of the day, either for betterness or not, since we can no more return back
whatever is lost such as the efforts, resources and the time that we are going to spend for this
project.