The Philippines and Singapore agreed to exchange knowledge, technical expertise, and best practices through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for digital cooperation signed between the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the Ministry of Communications and Information last Sept. 7 at the Istana in Singapore.
Photo from DICT
The two countries agreed to collaborate in areas of digital connectivity, scam calls and short message services (SMS), personal data protection, emerging technologies, digital government, and cybersecurity among others.
DICT secretary Ivan John E. Uy expressed the readiness of the Philippines to welcome foreign investors. “We are ready to supply you with the necessary talented work, and digital workforce that will be able to service your investments in the country,” Uy said.
The DICT is currently in the process of establishing common digital and data standards to be placed across the government bureaucracy.
In line with data management and e-government, the DICT said it is also deploying data harmonization efforts to ensure interoperability across concerned institutions and organizations.
“We consolidate data by deploying Application Programming Interface (APIs) and generating the necessary data for one government approach in terms of citizen-centric services. The government portal is currently in place and it’s still being improved further to improve government transactions,” Uy added.
Meanwhile, the Philippines has accepted the chairmanship of the Brunei Darussalam–Indonesia–Malaysia–Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) ICT Cluster in the 9th BIMP-EAGA ICT Cluster meeting held on September 7-8 in Bali, Indonesia.
The country was represented by a delegation of DICT Mindanao and Palawan directors headed by DICT assistant secretary for regional development Maria Teresa M. Camba.
The BIMP-EAGA is a cooperation initiative established in 1994 to spur development in remote and less developed areas in the four participating Southeast Asian countries.
The Philippines will lead the ICT Cluster for the years 2022-2025, following the turnover from Malaysia. As the new chair, the country will oversee the implementation of agreed deliverables towards achieving the BIMP EAGA Vision of 2025 (BEV 2025) — “Resilient, Inclusive, Sustainable and Economically competitive (R.I.S.E.) BIMP-EAGA to narrow development gap”.
The BEV 2025 was formulated to ensure that member countries are attuned to regional and global development trends, opportunities, and challenges that would influence the future of economic cooperation.
