BORONGAN CITY, Eastern Samar ? With the establishment of the Borongan Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Council recently, an ICT advocate said this development will likely to change the jobs ecosystem in this city.
In her visit to Borongan on June 15, National ICT Confederation of the Philippines (NICP) vice-president Jocelle Batapa-Sigue said that there is a potential in Borongan to host an ICT park. ?This will in turn change the jobs ecosystem in Borongan,? she said, noting how an ICT park boosted her hometown Bocolod City.
The 2017 JobStreet.com Bacolod Job Trends Report showed the BPO sector employs 40 percent of the total workers among the Top 10 industries in Bacolod.
In the course of her lecture on capacity development, Batapa-Sigue urged parents to encourage their children to venture into the ICT sector.
?With the push on ICT, there will be more jobs in the countryside and that the Philippine ICT councils would become the engine for real inclusive growth,? Batapa-Sigue, a lawyer, said. ?Let Borongan be in the fulcrum of the ICT development in Eastern Samar. We have to embrace technology fast. Why is it slow for us to adapt to new things??
She said Borongan could benefit from the revenues and employment from these ICT subsectors: animation and game development, contact centers and BPO, global in-house centers, health information management, and information technology and software development.
The workforce that is adept at ICT need not go to Metro Manila or other big cities to be employed, but they can work right in their hometown, she added. She said though that it will not be easy, their ICT journey needs the cooperation, coordination, and collaboration of both public and private sector.
But the first step, which is creating an ICT Council that will chart the course of the city?s ICT development, is done, she said. — Ninfa Iluminada Quirante (PIA)
