After Philippine President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr gave his approval, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said it was ready to roll out a single operating system for all government transactions. This would make it easier and faster for the government to provide services to the people of the country.
Ivan John Uy, the secretary of the DICT stated that the approval will speed up the completion of the DICT’s e-governance programmes and projects, which will make the Filipino government more connected and easier to use. “At the DICT, we try to make sure that the government never sleeps and is always available to the public,” the head of ICT said.
Together with other government departments, the DICT released the eGov Super App on December 2, 2022. As part of this effort, E-Local Government Units (ELGU), E-Government Applications (EGovApp), EGovpay, E-Travel, and E-Cloud, among other things, will be created, put into place, and connected.
Also, the DICT is working with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) on a full e-commerce site that will let Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) sell their goods and services online.
This platform will combine logistics, marketing, payments, access to loans, and source materials into a single ecosystem. This will make the whole process easier for MSMEs and allow them to join the digital economy.
Also, by digitising government services and putting them on a single site, people can get the services they need faster and with less work. It can also make corruption less likely because the platform can keep track of transactions and leave a clear audit record.
It could give the people of the country a lot of good things. But its success will rest on several things, such as how well the platform is designed and put into place and how well the government can get people to use it.
Also, the BroadBand ng Masa (BBM) Programme was officially started by the DICT at the University of Southeastern Philippines (USeP)-Obrero campus in Davao City. The goal of this project is to close the digital gap in the country by making sure everyone has access to the internet, especially in the Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDA) sites.
The DICT Secretary talked about how important it was for the project to help people in the country learn more about technology. There are now two free Wi-Fi hotspots on the USeP-Obrero site. One is in the College of Engineering Building and the other is in the College of Technology Building.
The DICT also plans to set up 22 free Wi-Fi spots in State Universities and Colleges in the Davao area. These hotspots have speeds between 100 and 500 Mbps and were made to make it easy for learners to connect to the internet and get to online learning materials.
The Broadband ng Masa Programme will also help improve the standard of education by making it easier to access libraries online, working together to talk to peers and experts from all over the world, and using digital tools to help the localities to learn better.
USeP Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr Bonifacio G. Gabales, Jr said that they were happy to be chosen as a beneficiary of the programme. He cited that this would help the University reach its goal of becoming a top research university that changes communities in the ASEAN and beyond because more and more students will have free, easier, and faster access to important information.
