After taking oath as The Department of Informations and Communications Technology secretary on July 1, 2019, Gregorio ‘Gringo’ Honasan III has received backlash from critics who point out that his lack of technical knowledge is a crippling factor for this position.
With 44 years of public service – 21 years as chairman of labor, environment, defense, public order; Honasan assures the people that he will perform his duties with utmost diligence, leaving the final decision to the appointing authority.
Critics have argued a clause on the DICT law which states that in order to be eligible, the head of the agency must “have at least seven years of competence and expertise in information and communications technology, information technology service management, information security management, cybersecurity, data privacy, or human capital development in the ICT sector.”
Honasan however ignored the critics in and chose to focus more on the phase of the project to install free wifi in Hospitals, having added 3 new sites: V. Lunas Medical Center, East Avenue Medical Center, and Philippine Children’s Medical Center by July 14.
Backed with support from other officials like Senate President Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto who has confidence in Honasan’s performance, as well as Senate President Pro Tempore: Ralph Recto who stated “Of particular interest to me and the general public, is the delay in the rollout of the free public WiFi hotspots, a program he ardently supported in the senate.”
Of the government’s P8 billion budget for cell sites and free WiFi, only 2,677 as of June 2019, out of the cumulative target 34,246 by the end of the year. By the year 2026, the government aims to cover 100,349 sites, which Recto notes will be impossible with the phase of operation Honasan’s predecessors were working with.
Sen. Juan Edgardo ‘Sonny’ Angara also recommended high priority for state universities and colleges for the DICT program, as only 17 of the 112 SUCs have been granted free WiFi access per Dec 2018 reports.
With a good start, the DICT under Honasan’s lead aims to expand WiFi and cell site coverage across the country as well as open the country to private foreign telecom and WiFi providers to provide options for the people and end the bandwidth monopoly present in the country.
Image Sources:
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