INDEX

 Executive Summary

 Summary of Recommendations

     Overarching Thrusts

     Strengthening Institutions

     The Appropriate Environment

     Extending the Reach of Information Infrastructure

     Refocusing Knowledge and Information Access

     Strategic Initiatives

     Information Analysis

 The Philippine Information Society

Executive Summary       |  TOP

We need not look any further than to one of the most influential voices in world development to gain important insights into the role of information and communications technologies (ICTs). From Mr. James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank comes this statement:

The information revolution makes understanding knowledge and development more urgent than ever before. New communications technologies and plummeting com­puting costs are transforming distance and eroding borders and time. The remotest village has the possibility of accessing a global state of knowledge beyond the dreams of anyone living a century ago and more quickly and cheaply than anyone had imagined only a few decades ago. Distance education has the potential to extend learning opportunities to millions of people who would otherwise lack access to quality education...

 To place this quote into the context of the Philippines, we refer to a recent statement of Dr. Felipe Medalla, Secretary of Socio-Economic Planning, National Economic and Development Authority. He has characterized the economic framework and the philosophy of the Estrada Administration as follows:

 The most important goal of the Estrada Administration’s economic program is sus­tained, broad-based, and non-inflationary economic growth which reduces absolute poverty through efficient, honest and fair taxation, judicious use of public funds, and the generation of sufficient job and livelihood opportunities. In short, the basic ob­jective is sustained and equitable economic growth or kaunlaran para sa lahat.

 To achieve this goal the Estrada administration will:

 1.      Establish clear, simple, transparent, consistent and uniformly applied set of rules which govern the private sector and its interaction with the government.

2.      Maintain a clear delineation of private sector and public sector roles or functions, with the private sector performing the business and entrepreneurial functions and the private sector playing a supportive but vital role. The business of business is business; and the business of government is to provide efficiently and effectively the climate and the services that are needed, so that business can become more productive and competitive, and capable of creating wealth and employment opportunities for everyone who wants to work. (And we know that our countrymen want to work. Millions of them take great risks by going abroad to find gainful employment). The most important role of government is the provision of essential public goods and services such as the maintenance of peace and order, the protection of the environment, and the provision of infrastructure and basic education and health services.

3.      Promote a competitive environment for Filipino firms both at home and in relation to the rest of the world. Firms and businesses will survive and grow because they are efficient and competitive, and not because the are protected from foreign competition or are the favorites of some government officials. (We must learn from past experience, however, that an important key to maintaining our global competitiveness is the avoidance of excessive and unsustainable foreign borrowing that result in an artificially strong peso, which inevitably collapses as soon as foreign funds are no longer easily available.)

4.      Adopt policies and implement a public investment plan that will engender a strong rural-based middle class. This class will not only supply food and raw materials to other sectors of our economy. It will also be engaged in rural but non-farm economic activities and will purchase services and manufactured goods in towns and cities all over the country, thereby contributing to the decongestion of Metro Manila and the progress of urban middle class households in regions other than the national capital region.

5.      Maintain a sound and stable macroeconomic environment. Policies designed to accelerate growth and reduce poverty will fail if the macroeconomy is unstable and unpre­dictable.

  The Philippines Information Infrastructure Policy Study (PIIPS) Report gives careful consideration to each of these recommendations.

Summary of Recommendations       |  TOP

This report is the conclusion to a series of consultations with carriers, application develop­ers, Internet service providers, equipment manufacturers government departments, asso­ciations and educators. To initiate the consultations, a kick-off meeting was held in Manila in October 1997.  This was attended by over fifty individuals with an interest in Philippine Information Infrastructure (PII) development. An audience of over two hundred representatives attended the First National PII Conference held in Manila in May 1998, from various sectors and regions of the Philippines. The findings from the consultations held between October and May were presented at this Conference and feedback was gathered for the development of an action plan. Further consultations were held with PIIPS advisory groups, and other key resource individuals and organizations during September and November of 1998.

Extensive surveys undertaken under Module 2 of the PII Policy Study identified the following key areas as the priority areas for follow-up:

·        Universal access including infrastructure and the appropriate services;

·        Interconnection among networks including the regional and global networks;

·        Regulation that provides a reasonable balance between competition and regulation;

·        Investment in the PII with support for the private sector, R&D, culture and content, etc.;

·        Information security to assure privacy for users;

·        Increased consumer awareness and learning opportunities from the PII;

·        Protection of intellectual property rights;

·        Promotion of technical innovation through the encouragement of strategic initiatives;

·        Government services including improved information access and a more strategic approach to government procurement;

·        Institutional reform, including the establishment of a PII Implementation Council.

 Further consultations were undertaken and an analysis of the issues was carefully developed. The final results of this analysis are described in the following as the Overarching Thrusts of this PII Policy Study Report. These thrusts/themes help to guide the reader in identifying the areas of concentration of this Report.

Overarching Thrusts        |  TOP

In many instances, new approaches are recommended for jump-starting the implementation of the Philippine Information Infrastructure. These recommendations in many cases will require a changed mindset and serious consideration of new approaches on the part of all stakeholders. 

 In the first instance, the government will need to become more proactive in identifying policy and regulatory issues that could potentially hamper PII development while closely monitoring and enforcing policies and regulations that are in already in place. Industry and business groups must see the necessity for cooperation with each other as well with government so that broader national and regional objectives can be achieved.

Increased effort, resources and budgets will need to be invested. A coordinated effort and the sharing of costs and resources between stakeholders will help to achieve these objectives.

Strengthening Institutions       |  TOP

The report makes recommendations related to the institutional framework of the PII and examines the roles of four key organizations involved in the PII. The analysis includes two existing organizations:

·        The National Information Technology Council;

·        The National Telecommunications Commission.

And two newly proposed organizations:

·        The Office of the Chief Information Officer;

·        The Philippine Information Infrastructure Implementation Council.

An outline of the new responsibilities and focus of these organizations and a series of recommendations are presented under Sections 4.5 and 5.2 of the report.

The Appropriate Environment        |  TOP

The appropriate environment required for sustaining the advancement of the PII is described under the following themes:

·        Governance, Policy Development and Regulatory Reform; and,

·        The Information Infrastructure.

New developments such as convergence, the Internet and electronic commerce are examined. Priority issues and critical bottlenecks, such as interconnection, universal access, regulatory reform, are also taken into account.

Promoting increased awareness of the PII, the development of new and appropriate strategies, policies and guidelines for the PII, improved planning and increased monitoring are indicators of such cooperation.

 Sections 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 provide extensive analysis of the appropriate environment for the PII. Sections 5.1, 5.4 and 5.5 include a series of Recommended Actions and Schedules as follow-ups.

Extending the Reach of the Philippine Information Infrastructure        |  TOP

The Philippines is rightly proud of its policies that have succeeded in attracting considerable investments in telecommunications.  However, there is now a requirement to extend the benefits of such infrastructure to a broader sector of the economy and to the rural and remote areas of the country.

The potential benefits of the existing infrastructure could be maximized for Filipinos through non-discriminatory interconnection of networks, a review of tariffs and costing of services and an increased attention to universal access.  New approaches to extending services would allow the Philippines to make significant advances by aggressively promoting new services such as electronic commerce and investing in common government e-mail and information services.

Sections 3.2, 3.4 and 3.6 provide a review of the current situation, while section 4.2 under Model User and section 4.3 The Information Infrastructure provide the broader review and analysis. Section 5.1 Recommendation: Maximizing Existing Infrastructure, and Section 5.4 Recommendation: New Approaches to Extending Services, provide the recommended actions and schedules for follow-up.

Refocusing on Knowledge and Information Access        |  TOP

The PIIPS Report makes a number of proposals including:

Efforts must be strengthened to commit increased resources to the information and knowledge sectors of the country. A parallel track approach that gives equal weight to extending both the infrastructure and the knowledge economies is required. For this purpose:

·        The creation of one or more centers of excellence for PII development would help to focus on the knowledge and information aspects of PII development;

·        Updating intellectual property legislation and implementing a Public Key Infrastructure are essential for unlocking the Philippine potential for content development;

·        Investing in the knowledge sector particularly in research and development related activities, is a requisite joint initiative for the government and the private sector.

Section 3.6, and Sections 4.1, 4.3 and 4.4 provide extensive analysis of the knowledge and information sectors. Sections 5.1, 5.4 and 5.5 provide a series of recommended actions and schedules as follow-ups.

Strategic Initiatives        |  TOP

Initiatives to stimulate the deployment of broadband networks are proposed. The focus is on applications and services that will benefit from an upgraded Internet service. Broadband Internet Protocol and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks will need to be installed to develop expertise in the design, manage­ment and use of these high‑speed networks. The networks would be built on top of the existing Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) infrastructure and will be used to support applications including software development companies and human resource development and business type applications. The ATM network can also act as a gateway to the Associa­tion of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) ATM test‑bed, enabling the Philippines to play a significant role in the development of applications for high‑speed international net­works.

The establishment of an ATM and broadband pilot network would allow:

·        the development of expertise in broadband and ATM technologies applications development;

·        gateway access to the APII and GII networks, and

·        service testing and development.

The significance of this recommendation is that it would support advanced multimedia content creation and development, an area in which Filipinos have a considerable degree of skill. Sections 3.3, 4.3 and 5.3 provide an analysis of this situation.

Information Analysis and Dissemination        |  TOP

One of the key themes dealt with throughout the report is the need to collect, analyze and make information broadly available in a more efficient manner. Information to promote awareness raising in government, in the private sector and at the public level is considered essential for the development of the PII.

With this goal in mind, this report includes extensive reviews and analysis in Section 4.2 Tracking Progress, and Medium and Long Term Planning and in Section 4.4 Awareness Raising. Recommendations to promote better access to information concerning the PII are included in Sections 5.5 and 5.6.

Benefits of the Philippine Information Infrastructure        |  TOP

The benefits of investment into the PII occur in various forms. Studies and reports from other countries have shown them to have important social and economic impacts.

These include the ability of the PII to provide:

·        Improved communication and information exchange within the nation and with other nations - to promote national identity, disseminate public information and educate people.

·        Improved productivity in government and in the private sector.

·        Improved international competitiveness.

The Philippine Information Society        |  TOP

The purpose of the discussion that follows is to broaden the analysis and give fuller consideration of where the PII fits into the national developmental context. For this purpose we need to first provide the reader with a definition and vision of “information infrastructure” and the “information society” and therefore refer to a recent OECD publication.  

From a definitional perspective it is difficult to differentiate global information infrastructure (GII) concepts from global information society (GIS) concepts since they are often used interchangeably.

There are those who view the developments of the infrastructure, including the physical, service and policy infrastructure (GII) as a precursor to the emergence of a global information society (GIS); others view a GII concept as providing more emphasis on the economics of development of an information society, while GIS is viewed as providing emphasis on the social aspects of such a society. By placing equal emphasis on GII and GIS, OECD Ministers stressed the necessity of both the economic importance in developing global information infrastructures in terms of creating economic activity and jobs, and the necessity to use these developments to improve societal goals and aspirations.

Information societies are being formed by three inter-related long-term trends:

·        social and cultural changes brought about by increased communications and by spreading and deepening literacy;

·        shifts in the structure of economic development leading to a greater role for the service sector;

·        technical change, in which the enabling technologies underlying communications and information are increasing quickly in capacity and capability, while decreasing rapidly in cost.

There are also a number of defining characteristics of an information society:

·        information is seen and used as an economic resource for increased efficiency, effectiveness, responsiveness, innovation, and to maintain and increase the competitiveness of the private sector;

·        an emerging and growing information industry, with three components: content, delivery, and information processing. The information content provider sector is marked by rapid growth. An important sub-sector becomes concerned with intellectual property rights;

·        people “consume” more information, both for daily living activities and as citizens in carrying out civic responsibilities and exercising civil rights. Public access to educational, social, political and cultural information is facilitated by the development of supporting information systems. In other words, the range of social benefits that become increasingly available will help to broaden the choices for Filipino society at large.

It needs to be noted however that an information society raises all sorts of governance related issues: legal, technical, ethical, and social. Some of the more obvious examples include:

·        Can the market be left to address privacy issues and intellectual property issues?

·        What about impacts on employment on the unskilled on rural areas or on the disadvantaged? 

·        What are the educational requirements for success in a knowledge-based economy, for the young, for the middle-aged worker, for women?

An increasing reliance on the service sector has significant social implications in terms of displacement of unskilled workers in favor of those with more specialized skills. This has serious implications for training and human resources development. It also means that universal access policies must move onto a dual track – bringing basic access to all Filipinos, and providing access to advanced services as well, for those who can make use of them. Thus, information management strategies become increasingly vital to the efficient use of national resources and for ensuring that nations are not permanently divided into information–skilled “haves” and  “have-nots”.

The ever-increasing pace of technical change implies that nations must push forward faster and faster to at least keep abreast, in some meaningful way, with advanced technology and the applications that it makes possible. R&D capabilities must be carefully focussed and advanced skills obtained and kept current through training and through ongoing contact and technology transfer with other nations.

The policy development actions that the government undertakes will have a wider impact than just on the speed of development of the PII. This report calls for attention to intellectual property rights legislation, including acts concerning copyright and trademark. Such improvements in the legal environment will be of general benefit for the advancement of the Philippine business community, to potential foreign companies and investors and certainly, to the firms and individuals concerned with the content and applications layer of the PII.

Similarly, there is no clear boundary between the PII and the Philippine Information Society (PIS) when it comes to the access to knowledge and information. This report deals with issues related to the PII and the access to and the reach of government services. In a complimentary way, this is shown to have a broader impact on the PIS, to government effectiveness in the provision of services for the purpose of increasing access to educational, health and other related types of services.

Such a broader policy orientation, which we refer to as our Philippine IS theme, recognizes that the PII is only a means to a greater end, and suggests strongly, that access to information, and to information creation and management capabilities, should not be rationed in a burgeoning information society.