Speech of President GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO 7th meeting of the E-Asean Task Force Oakwood Premier, Ayala Center, April 20, 2001. The Century For Asia Manila Bulletin Monday, 23 April 2001 (Speech of President GLORIA MACAPAGAL-ARROYO 7th meeting of the E-Asean Task Force Oakwood Premier, Ayala Center, April 20, 2001.) ...PEOPLE the necessary competencies in information and communication technology or ICT to flourish in the global new economy. I also believe that the EAsean initiative is an important element of an Asean strategy that will define our place and role in the post Cold War, post Asean financial crisis world and for helping us move the E-Asean initiative forward, I would like to congratulate the members of the E-Asean Task Force for a

job well done In particular, I would like to commend you on your work on the Asean framework agreement on information and communication technology product, services and investments, with its agreement we have signalled to the world that here in Southeast Asia there is commitment at the highest level to undertake the necessary steps to ensure prosperity in the global new economy. I also support the Task Force strategist of complimenting policy advocacy with pilot projects. Pilot projects are important to gain widespread support among the citizens of Asean for this important initiative. We need to be able to demonstrate that today even while the infrastructure has not been fully developed, ICT can make a difference in the daily life of the people of Southeast Asia. I am informed that the Task Force has already endorsed about 20 pilot projects in information infrastructure development, ecommerce, esociety and egovernment. While this is a good start, I hope that by the time the Asean summit in November is held, there will be more EAsean endorsed pilot projects In particular, I would like to see more pilot projects in the field of infrastructure development and e-government. I am aware that what I am asking is not easy particularly in the field of dot.com and text top have lost their luster and venture capital is increasingly hard to find. But I have faith in your creativity and your dedication to the task. I know that you will work hard to ensure the continued success of the EAsean initiative. I am convinced that the success of the E-Asean initiative to date is largely due to the strength of public-private partnership that is engendered, and I hope that will continue. The Task Force has succeeded because it became a mechanism that allows the private and public sectors to bring their respective comparative advantages together in preparing for the future. This, in turn, guaranteed that our E-Asean initiative would be responsive to real world demand and not to what policy makers or academicians believe the marketing. The Asean leaders were indeed wise in creating a Task Force at its private sector driven. And as we move forward to the E-Asean initiative we must ensure that the private sector is meaningfully engaged in the process of creating EAsean. The benefits derive from public-private partnership in ICT development are also something that I hope we are able to reap in the Philippines. On numerous occasions in the past, I have spoken on the important of ICT forthe future of the Philippines. I have said that if the Philippines is to prosper in the 21st century, it must find its proper list in the new economy. I am happy that the private sector has responded to the challenge of creating the new economy by organizing various bodies. The I-tech participation by the private sector, the Digital Philippine Foundation. The Digital Philippine Foundation which has its leading members business entities and the largest industry associations in the Philippines, ICT sector is to contribute towards national development through the promotion of ICT utilization in all sectors of Philippine society and the promotion of Philippine ICT services worldwide, it supplements the work that has started by I-tech which is what we have inherited from the previous administration and still continue to be today. On the part of government, I have created the Cabinet cluster on ICT to ensure swift and coordinated government action on ICT concern. This Cabinet cluster which is composed of secretaries of relevant government departments will be the lead government body on ICT policy formulation and implementation. This Cabinet cluster will also harmonize and coordinate all public ICT initiatives and will attend to cross-cutting issues that cannot be handled by specific government agencies. In formulating the new economy development strategy and plan for the Philippines. We must focus on the following: First, enhancing the country's information infrastructure; second, creating and enabling a regulatory environment; and third, developing human capital. For a country like the Philippines developing the information infrastructure is critical to our future competitiveness. For this reason, our administration, my administration must pursue as a priority the building of the information infrastructure or a network of broad bond multi-purpose network that will provideFilipinos affordable access to information and communication services to and from anywhere in the Philippines at any time. Admittedly, businesses herculean task and we are working at a great disadvantage, Tele-density on this country is low even compared to the leading states in the region. Telephone distribution remains an even throughout the Philippines. Filipinos in major cities and municipalities have more access in info-com services than their compatriot in rural areas. but the good news is, we already know the right quality to role our info-com's network. Our experience with deregulation and liberalization of the telecoms market clearly shows that there are the best policies to ensure the rapid and cause effective delivery of communication services. More Filipinos get more telephones in less than a decade under a competitive telecom's market than during numerous decade of monopoly. The market, however, is not a pure all and does not address all issues. On the 5.3 million telephone lines available to Filipinos last year only 2.8 million lines were subscribed affordability of telephone services particularly among lowincome household living in the rural areas accounts for this deserving situation. It is therefore important that it seriously looks into how we can establish a new, universal access fund to ensure affordable infocom services in rural communities. We must also seriously explore the concept of communitybased and shared info-com forces to bridge the information gap between the urban and rural areas. Already, our department of transportation and communications is pursuing a strategy of broadening popular access to basic information and communication services through community e-centers or telecenters as they are popularly known. Unlike existing public call centers, these community ecenters will offer a range of services to local communities including communication facilities like phone, fax, voice messaging and e-mails and business services ranging from photocopying, word processing and printing services. Eventually, community centers will become one top shot for all line services for citizen. In the future, various transactions of government agencies such as the filing of taxes, licensing applications and other similar transactions will be undertaken in these community e-centers. In the more populated areas, the e-centers can provide such services as cybercafe, ATM services and other services pertinent to electronic commerce transaction. In remote areas, community e-centers can also function as strategic information bases where farmers for instance, can access basic data, statistics and information on weather and meteorological forecast, farmgate prices, transport schedules and other pertinent information in order to ensure sustainability, this community e-centers must be managed by local community organizations, cooperatives or entrepreneur. After the initial establishment of the community e-learning center, the role of the initiating parties will shift to local portal and constant development, awareness, creation and capacity building. I am convince that the private sector and civil society must play a vital role if this e-center initiative is to succeed. The establishment of community e-centers can also be facilitated by technological and business development that peace gloring of the traditional boundary that made cable TV, broadcasting, telephoning, satellite and news services listing convergent or the coming together of consumer devices such as a telephone, television and personal computer can help make advance infocom services widely available ensuring that the benefits of the information society are eventually availed of by the majority of Filipinos instead of only a few. For government convergence implies a challenge as it involves a process of market and industry structuring leading to the emergence of a single economic market based on digitization and networking. The integration of the content and information industries will mean radical changes and will require a paradigm shift on how policy is made and industry is regulated. Much of the existing law on communication was enacted with the assumption of single network for specific services. It is therefore important that our laws are made more relevant to current economic and technological reality. Towards this goal I will transmit to the next Congress as a priority measure a comprehensive convergence bill that will define the principles, qualities and administrative and regulative framework that will allowdigital convergence to flourish in this country. An important principle that will be inscribed in this proposed convergence laws is competition. Convergence can lead to full service companies that are even bigger than that ones that are currently existing in the Philippines we are already seems the merger of two leading cable companies, a telecom company vying to a TV station and telecom companies offering convergent services while this development are in respond to market development, government must ensure that the emergence entities will not engage in anti-competitive practices. The proposed convergence law that I will transmit to our legislator will also include the creation of a government agency that will define policy for the ICT sector as well as a regulatory body for this sector. The creation of our department of ICT and communication and the reorganization of the National Telecommunications Commission into a National Infocom Commission are important elements in ournational new economy strategy. Beyond building the Philippine information structure and creating a policy and regulatory environment supportive of the new economy, then the government should also focus on human development. The demand for technology knowledge workers has increased. As I see to continue to penetrate and transform the organization of market and the workplace. These pose an enormous challenge to all education institutions to be able to adopt both the content and the method of the training that they provide in order to prepare their student for digital economy. I am not talking here only of computer literacy, but the development of higher order, form skills that have abstracting, planning, critical thinking and problem solving. For in the digital workplaces of today, the knowledge workers comparative advantage does not simply lie in his word processing skills or his ability to do broadsheet, but in his ability to thinkstrategically in a complex highly flexible environment. Clearly there is a purely technical imperative for bringing ICT into the classroom, but key learning promises more than technical competence the essence of e-learning is developing critical, creative, and strategic thinking through exchange and collaboration. The potential of ICT to enhance learner efficiency,effectiveness and engagement is enormous, e-learning therefore cannot only increase a productivity of basic literacy skills but can also improve the planning, problem solving and analytic skills of the learner. We have already taken the initial steps in bringing technology to the classroom and e-learning in Philippine schools. The government PC for public high school program will bring computers to a thousand public high schools in the country. This modest step is being complimented by various private sector and civil society initiative aimed at bringing the power of the Internet into Philippine school, undoubtedly much need to be done. But I am confident that focus on infrastructure development creating and enabling legal and regulatory framework and human development in the Philippines can now begin earnestly preparing for the global new economy. The challenge to the Philippine spaces in laying the foundation for prosperity in the new economy is unique. The promise of the information economy remains a dream for the vast majority in the developing world. Access to advance information and communication services is largely limited to those in the developed countries , or those in the urban areas of developing countries. The skills set required to be employed as knowledge worker is possessed only by a minority in our country. This great divide threatens to deepen the gulf that already separate the rich and the poor country. But we in Asean are fortunate. The governments of Southeast Asia are responding to the challenge of a new economy from Brunei, to the People's Republic of Vietnam, National ICT efforts are being intensified. At the regional level we have the E-Asean initiative. Our E-Asian agreement remains the only convenant among developing countries on coherent strategy for regional ICT development. We cannot afford, however, to the complacent because we cannot afford to be left behind. Fortunately, if recent event can serve as a clue to the future, there is reason to hope that as individual nation and as a region, we will prosper in the new century. The century of information, the century of technology, and because we are doing what we are doing in e-Asean, I hope it also be the century for Asia. Thank you.