The Philippine Online Chronicles

The Business Software Alliance recently issued a survey that the Philippines is not competitive in the Information Technology sector.

Economist Cid Terosa said in an interview by gmanews.tv, “There are no highly trained IT Professionals here”, adding, “Sad to say wala ito sa list of PPP projects. An mga nandoon lang ay education projects and other infrastructure.” Senator Angara adds that the country has a lot of catching up to do, and says he will propose PHP322 Million for “innovation clusters”.

Both have no idea what they are talking about.

And the Business Software Alliance survey is just a blip in a bigger scale.

The Global Information Technology Report is a survey on how economies are adopting and implementing Information, and Communications Technology. It looks at the problem in a holistic approach. It looks at market environment, political and regulatory environment. It also checks out infrastructure— phones, power, servers, bandwidth, number of engineers, and number of scientists. It looks at individual usage as well as business and government usage. And out of 138 economies, the Philippines ranked 86 with a score of 3.6 for the 2010-2011 survey. In 2009-2010 the Philippines ranked 85 with a score of 3.6. Just to add more color to the survey, the Global Competitiveness Index 2010 to 2011 ranked the Philippines 85 out of 139 economics.

So, looking at this survey you can see where the problems lie.

For example the availability of scientists and engineers? Philippines ranked 96 with a score of 2.9 out of 7.

How about tertiary education enrollment rate? Rank 76.

The availability of research and training services? Rank 77 with a score of 4.0 out of 7.

Quality of scientific research institutions: rank 107 with a score of 2.9 out of 7 scale.

Internet bandwidth? Score 1.1, rank 102.

Electricity is even worst. Rank 105.

That’s not all.

Effectiveness of law-making bodies is ranked 119 out of 138 counties. No. of days to enforce a contract is 117 out of 138 economies.

So what we can gleam from this? Well, education is one of the many reasons as to why ICT isn’t taking off in the Philippines. We don’t have enough scientists and engineers, and worst yet, the quality of existing scientific research institutions is terrible. So clearly, we need to beef up education, and into the sciences. So clearly the readiness component needs to be addressed. Our people are simply not able to take advantage of technology.

The same could be said about environment component? Meaning market conditions, laws and infrastructure are dismal.

How does one address it? Well, the Aquino administration is pushing for better anti-corruption laws, which will help. It is focusing on education so that the next generation of Filipinos. Education is key.

Where Mr. Angara could help is making law making bodies more effective. He could also try to make government regulation less, and how to start a business across the country far far easier. Mr. Angara could also introduce laws and measures that would make university research and corporations partner with each other.

The judiciary needs to look into how it can settle legal disputes as well, and how contracts are enforced.

I believe the Global Technology Report, and by and large, The Global Competitiveness Index are checklists of what’s wrong with the Philippines, and what’s needed to be corrected.

Cid Terosa is right about one thing though. There has to be a Public Private Partnership project focused on the ICT sector; specifically the anemic Internet infrastructure in the Philippines. The country needs faster Internet speeds because like roads they make every business better. What boosting Internet speeds will do is allow communications and new businesses to proliferate. It isn’t specifically about making the next Silicon Valley, Internet simply allows people to do their jobs.

Decks get sent faster to client. Documents get approved faster when people can read them on their phones on the go. Meetings could be held face-to-face using video conferencing, which saves on money, and saves on gasoline.

Better Internet in the Philippines means people get to do their jobs much more efficiently. And the country needs an Internet policy and strategy.

What’s happening in the Philippines is a combination of things. It is like having a car. The car isn’t really fast. It really isn’t new, and modern, but it is a car that moves. But then you have a situation where you barely know how to drive the car. So the solution is to learn how to drive the car, as well as find ways to upgrade the car so it is drivable.

Does that make sense?

We need to ask the right questions.

Are we interested in being an ICT player? And if we are, we can design the future that way. We can build up the math and sciences. We can invest in Universities so they can come up with innovative ideas and create a setup where those ideas go to market. We can also create an environment right now— with the right policy to set the pace of Internet development.

At the end of the day, it isn’t simply a function of the Palace to say so. The rub is this.  ICT is a private sector problem. And the answer on how to make it a whole lot better starts with people thinking on how to make things better. It really is about a holistic approach to “building the Philippines”.