Marcos: Embrace digitalization for more competitive PH economy under new normal

President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. renewed his call for digitalization in the Philippines amid the new normal.

Screencap from RTVM feed

Vital role of digitalization in PH economy

According to a report by Philstar, Marcos said in his speech during the Telco Summit 2022 this week that the country should embrace digitalization if it wants to thrive in a post-pandemic economy. He also called for the immediate implementation of technological innovations that will help the economy compete in today's world.

The landscape change accelerates faster, compelling us to be even smarter, even bolder in finding digital solutions to many problems, he said.

And it is not as if we have a choice in doing this. It is not for us merely an option. Maybe we should digitalize, maybe not. It’s not that way at all, he added.

Marcos noted digitalization will play a key role, especially in terms of improving the ease of doing business, which should start with the bureaucracy to make government services accessible.

The country should digitalize as quickly as possible and take advantage of such to be able to survive or flourish in the post-pandemic economy, he noted.

Technology — which can either be hardware, software, or successful ideas or techniques — would provide the solutions and it is up to us to find them, Marcos said.

The president also assured the telco industry that digitalization is his administration's priority.

We have to move quickly. When I looked around when I was in ASEAN and APEC, I saw that we are not too badly off, but we could do so much better, he said.

Marcos also said that The country's connectivity rate has to improve, which is "still pretty low" at below 70 percent. This is "not good enough," especially for an archipelagic country such as the Philippines "where connectivity is exceedingly important because we have many isolated communities," he pointed out.

The president urged relevant government agencies and the private sector to ensure efforts toward digitalization are implemented and realized.

Meanwhile, in a meeting with other government officials, Marcos ordered the Philippine Statistics Authority to fast-track the printing of the electronic Philippine ID or ePhilID, the digital equivalent of the national ID, amid issues in the distribution of the physical IDs, also according to a Philstar report.

Let us print out as much as we can, and then let’s issue the physical ID as soon as we can, he said.

National ID sample

PSA said last month it has so far printed more than 3.6 million ePhilIDs.

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Source: Philstar