Senator Edgardo J. Angara spoke at the Senate plenary hall on Wednesday to formally introduce and call for the passage of the measure creating a Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT). Top officials of the Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) were also present to observe the proceedings.

Officials of the National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP), Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines (JFCP), Contact Center Association of the Philippines (CCAP), and the Business Process Outsourcing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) came in full force to the Senate to back up the proposed legislation.

Interestingly, officials of the ICTO, which is under the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DOST), also attended the session, with ICTO executive director Louis Casambre even occupying the seat near Angara as the senator delivered his sponsorship speech.

The DOST, through Undersecretary Fortunato dela Pena, earlier voiced its opposition to the formation of the DICT. But the presence of Casambre and his deputies at the plenary seemed to indicate that the DOST has somewhat softened its stand.

According to former CICT commissioner and now ICTO official Monchito Ibrahim, the “DOST-ICTO does not oppose the DICT bill.” He did not say, though, if the agency is supporting the passage of the bill.

ICTO chief Casambre sat beside NICP chair Jocell Batapa-Sigue, who was listed as a resource person for Angara, but the two never engaged in a conversation.

Batapa-Sigue, a Bacolod-based lawyer, has been at the forefront in calling for the restoration of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) and the formation of the DICT.

In a statement, Batapa-Sigue said the NICP is pushing for the creation of the DICT to “ensure that the gains and opportunities in the ICT sector are mainstreamed and spread to the countryside” and “to have a permanent Philippine champion for ICT”, among other objectives.

Angara noted in his speech that the fast-growing economies of Southeast Asia have a ministry or department dedicated to ICT.

“We are in league with Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Timor-Leste for having none. This speaks volumes of our weakening national competitiveness,” the senator said.

Angara, chair of the Senate S&T committee, said the booming IT-BPO industry has already sounded off the need to have a dedicated agency to plan the country’s strategic ICT development and direction as early as five years ago.

“Yet until now we are still without one — hence we remain unable to seize the huge opportunities of the fast evolving digital age,” said Angara, principal author of the proposed measure seeking to create the DICT, together with Senators Loren Legarda and Manuel Villar.

Angara noted that the DICT bill was nearly passed during the Fourteenth Congress.

“If we had, we would now have a working framework for e-governance initiatives and applications, especially on universal healthcare, precision farming, disaster risk reduction, e-learning, combating cybercrime and business regulation,” said Angara, who is also chair of the Congressional Commission on Science, Technology and Engineering (Comste).

Last year, he said the IT-BPO industry made record revenues of $9 billion and created 525,000 direct jobs, as well as 1.312 million more jobs in ancillary industries. This marks a phenomenal growth over six years, from only $1.3 billion in revenues and 101,000 employees in 2004, he said.

The country earned $5.7 billion last year in pure voice-based services alone, besting India as the top contact center hotspot in the world.

The BPAP said the industry can sustain this growth through 2016 when revenues are expected to shoot up to $26 billion and the workforce increase to 1.3 million.

A World Bank analysis shows that the industry can generate as much as $50 billion by 2020. This will be possible through aggressive expansion into higher value, non-voice BPO services such as medical transcription, engineering services, IT and software development and creative media.