We sincerely appreciate the recent call of the Black and White Movement for President Benigno Simeon Aquino III to “rescind the executive order and restore CICT to the Office of the President to give ICT the importance and attention it deserves” as embodied in their post-SONA public statement.
We particularly highlight and reinforce the portion of their statement, which states as follows:
“We believe that ICT is a major engine for economic growth. Dissolving CICT, the primary agency responsible for the development of ICT through E.O. 47 and transferring its functions to DOST send the wrong signals to the ICT industry and the international community that ICT is not a priority for this government. We urge the President to rescind the executive order and restore CICT to the Office of the President to give ICT the importance and attention it deserves.”
We thank the Black and White Movement for boldly and correctly advising the President. Our respect goes to this movement which despite the fact that it has publicly supported the Aquino presidency in 2010, chose to be objective and not turn a blind eye on a wrong move of Malacanan that will not only hurt the ICT industry and our nation in general but will likewise hamper the goal of the Aquino administration for job generation.
We wish to confirm and re-affirm that by the stand of the Black and White Movement, your movement has indirectly shown concern for all the cities, provinces and regions outside of Metro Manila which have become united under the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT).
The National ICT Confederation of the Philippines transcend political borders and was formed as a mechanism for collaboration and sharing of best practices among ICT councils and federations of various cities, provinces and regions in our efforts to market our respective locations as IT-BPO investments destinations.
We concur with the Black and White Movement in calling on the current administration to accelerate the implementation of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program and start spending more on infrastructure projects “to spur economic activity, generate employment, and allow the benefits of what is turning out to be a robust economy reach all levels of society, even in the midst of a global recession.”
The CICT regardless of its officials had been the symbol of unity for NICP to come together and be connected to other major organizations such as those from the industry, academe and other national line agencies. This is one sterling example of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) program that has been proven effective since almost a fourth of the IT-BPO industry or about a hundred thousand of its direct jobs can now be found in the countryside.
The CICT has nurtured our cities, provinces and regions, from the very start, and has patiently guided us as we took our “baby steps” in the very competitive IT-BPO world. Today, many of us are already amongst the top destinations for IT-BPO companies outside of Metro Manila nationally and globally, thereby helping make the Philippines number one in the voice-based sector and third in the outsourcing global market.
But while some of our locations are almost fully-grown, many of us are still in the formative stages, building our competitiveness in the field of human resource development, infrastructure, and business environment. The abolition of the CICT has left our ICT councils orphan and without a catalyst, and unless the CICT is restored, our momentum and eventually our growth will be greatly affected. The Department of Science and Technology can never efficiently take the place of the CICT, given that time is of the essence, the embedded bureaucracy of a department as well as its limited core competencies and mandate.
The NICP is composed of Albay ICT Association, Inc. – Legazpi City ICT Council (AICTA-LCICTC), Aurora ICT Council, Bacolod-Negros Occidental Federation for ICT (BNEFIT), Inc., Balanga ICT Council, Bataan-Olongapo-Zambales-Subic Educational Development Organization for Information Technology (BOZE-DO-IT), Bohol ICT Council, Bulacan ICT Council, Cagayan de Oro ICT Business Council (CDO ICT), CARAGA ICT Council, Cavite ICT Council, Cebu Educational Development Foundation for IT (CEDFIT), City of San Fernando Pampanga ICT Council, ICT Association of Dumaguete and Negros Oriental, ICT@Bicol Council, ICT Davao, Inc., ICT Solutions Association of Region 12 - General Santos City (ISA 12-GSC), Iligan City ICT Council (ICICTC), Iloilo Federation for IT (IFIT), Laguna Industry Network for Knowledge, Innovation & Technology Foundation (LINK-IT),Metro Clark ICT Council, Inc. (MCICTCI), Metro Ilocos Norte ICT Council, Northern Samar ICT Council, Nueva Ecija ICT Council and Tarlac ICT Council.
For the NICP:
ATTY. JOCELLE BATAPA-SIGUE
Chair, National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP)
No comments:
Post a Comment