Former Senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan II has issued his first marching order as the new Department of Information and Communications (DICT) secretary : free Wi-Fi in hospitals.
A day after taking his oath of office, Honasan went to work as he launched free Wi-Fi access points at Quirino Memorial Medical Center (QMMC) on Tuesday, July 2.
After addressing DICT employees in his first day at his new office in Diliman, Honasan spearheaded the agency’s inauguration of additional free Wi-Fi access points at the public hospital located at Project 4, Quezon City.
“What the President has asked the DICT is to launch free Wi-Fi access points. So this will be the first project of DICT as I assume (the office),” Honasan said.
The new DICT chief said the QMMC can enjoy 10x more access points as he intends to duplicate this in 46 public hospitals in Metro Manila and even the farthest, poorest hospitals in the country.
As of June 30, the DICT said it has 53 integrated free Wi-Fi Internet sites in public hospitals in the country.
“We have a backlog for that (free Wi-Fi in hospitals). We will be doing this in sequence. Because if we go back to the ultimate rule which is the Constitution, we want to secure and protect the right, liberty and property,” Honasan added.
Honasan also announced that former DICT acting secretary Eliseo M. Rio Jr. will be now assigned as undersecretary for operations.
“We will first connect everybody to each other – government to governments, domestic to global, government to business, government to the citizens and everybody to each other. And we will do this in a faster, cheaper if not in a free manner and in a more secure manner,” he said.
