Despite being a home of world's top Internet users, the Philippines is one of the countries that has the

slowest internet connection (Lopez, 2019). In fact, Philippines is the country in the Asia Pacific which has
the slowest average internet speed (Rodriguez, 2014).

The full potential of technology cannot be achieved completely today unless we will solve the main
issue: internet access, which is usually experienced by developing countries (McKinley, 2018). Parman
(2019) believes that broadband internet is essential both in the school and at home for students to be
competent in the 21st century.Challenges in internet access become a problem because 70% of teachers
assign homework that requires internet connection.

There are four reasons that many people find accessing the internet hard. The first one is the
unavailability of good and fast connection. At least 15% of the global population has no electricity and
31% do not have access to 3G coverage. The second factor that prevents people from accessing the
internet is the price of connectivity and devices. Not everyone can afford to have a broadband
connection since 13% of the global population is impoverished. Skills and cultural acceptance of people
can also be a barrier in accessing the internet. Another factor is the language barrier (Luxton, 2016).

The Philippines has issues accessing the Internet because of its topography. Given that the country is an
archipelago, fixed networks are hard to build. This makes the internet connectivity slow and fees higher.
In addition, since it is still a developing country, many people could not afford to have good internet
connection (Jennings, 2016). A recent study conducted by McKinsey & Company revealed that 62
million out of 98 million Filipinos do not have access to the internet. In fact, Philippines ranks 11th as the
country with the most number of non-Internet users.

Since we are living in a digital world, people have become dependent on the Internet. It became an
essential especially for students. In line with this, the Department of Education (DepEd) acknowledge
the importance of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in enhancing the state of
education (Garcia, 2016). Marasigan (2016) affirms that the absence of a government policy that
provides Internet access to elementary and secondary schools became a hindrance for the Philippines to
achieve its goal to provide digital literacy. However, President Rodrigo Duterte signed Republic Act
10929 which allows places like government offices, education institutions, hospitals, transport
terminals, and other public places to access the Internet (Ranada, 2017).