DICT secretary Gregorio Honasan II said the proposed common tower policy must be sustainable in order to achieve the government’s target of building 50,000 telecommunication towers for the improvement of country’s connectivity.
Sen. Ralph Recto cited the DICT for deploying what he called a "SWAT or Special Wi-Fi Access Team" to earthquake-hit Batanes, which enabled residents to call worried relatives and rescuers to synchronize their work.
The new law aims to help startups and startup enablers by providing incentives like travel grants, access to a Startup Venture Fund, and assistance in getting visas and business permits.
The DICT said the improvements in telco services will stem from a high-speed Internet infrastructure to be built through its partnership with Facebook and the start of operations of Dito Telecommunity Corporation (Dito), the country's third major telco player.
This developed after newly appointed DICT secretary Gringo Honasan chose to pick IT executive Emmanuel “Manny” Caintic to replace Cabanlong in his role as the top official in charge of cybersecurity concerns.
Appointed as undersecretaries were lawyers Jose Arturo de Castro and Eleazar Almalbis Jr., while named assistant secretaries were Emmanuel Caintic and Vicente Cejoco.
The program has been plagued by delays even if the government has appropriated almost P8 billion since the project's inception in 2015. As of June 2019, only 2,677 sites have been made operational, out of the cumulative target of 34,236 sites by end of the year.
Long-time observers of the local ICT industry said they are hoping Honasan would bring in more experienced and competent underlings who can help him tackle the issues that the ICT sector is currently facing.
