CEBU, Philippines - Pressing the government on addressing the weakening of the Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing (IT-BPO) industry, major industry organizations are now uniting to “be heard”.
“We were disappointed that Executive Order 47 was issued without extensive stakeholder consultation, as we believe that this would have been highly beneficial to the development and execution of public policy on the key ICT sector,” an official statement signed by six major associations in the Philippines.
Representatives from Animation Council of the Philippines, Inc. (ACPI), Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP), Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), Gaming Development Association of the Philippines (GDAP), Health Information Management Outsourcing Association of the Philippines (HIMOAP), and Philippines Software Industry Association (PSIA) made its separate call, following the official statement made earlier by the regional IT/BPO organizations expressing disappointment of the implementation of Executive Order 47.
“We were therefore surprised when we learned of Executive Order 47 (EO 47), a presidential directive which renamed CICT as the Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO), placed it under the supervision of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), reoriented its functions, and directed that it be headed by a still-to-be named Executive Director with the rank of an undersecretary, instead of its current Chairman, Secretary Ivan Uy, who has the rank of cabinet secretary and has been very effective as an advocate of our industry,” the statement read.
The group, urged DOST Secretary Mario Montejo to involve individuals with deep experience with the industry in the leadership of the ICTO, including those from CICT.
“We also call on him [Montejo] to further clarify to all stakeholders his plans for the ICTO, particularly with regards to the Philippine Digital Strategy, which CICT launched last month after extensive consultation with, and support from, our industry and other stakeholders. For our part, we will continue to work closely with government, including DOST and ICTO, to achieve the industry’s full potential,” the industry prime movers said.
These six organizations, which member companies employing over 600,000 Filipinos and contributed multi-million-dollars in revenue to the government also made its strong call to the government “to engage in deeper collaborative dialogue with all stakeholders before undertaking further major reforms that critically affect our sector.”
“Unless we strengthen our Public-Private Partnership with the government, we will have great difficulty achieving our goal of generating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the next few years,’ the group warned.
Finally, the industry stakeholders expressed their strong belief that the ICT sector is so critical to enhancing our national competitiveness and accelerating economic development that it merits even greater focus from the government, thus, the creation of a full department of government.
Accordingly, the group also emphasized its long-standing support for the Department on ICT (DICT) Bill, whose authors are led by led by Senate Science and Technology Committee Chair Sen. Edgardo Angara and House ICT Committee Chairman Cong. Freddie Tinga.
“We believe that further elevating the government’s prioritization of the ICT sector through the creation of a DICT will increase the ability of ICT to ensure the success not just of the IT-BPO industry, but of the entire nation,” the industry prime movers said. —(FREEMAN)