NEDA

NEDA director-general Karl Chua said he saw the significance of digitalization during the pandemic when social protection programs cannot be delivered because there was no single registry or database of Filipinos to identify beneficiaries.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that 343,742 registrants have received their PhilID cards.

NEDA has urged the government to speed up the implementation of the digital contact tracing system that could help reduce the period from detection of Covid-19 virus to isolation from 7 to 5 days.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said the sudden change of bidding rules that allowed Madras Security Printers and Mega Data Corporation to bag the project was due to its strategy towards incorporating cloud computing as part of a hybrid approach.

But a report from the World Bank noted that the country’s Internet connectivity – the foundation of the digital economy – is limited in rural areas, and where they are available, services are relatively expensive and of weak quality.

NEDA assistant secretary Carlos Bernardo Abad Santos said one of the major constraints is the country's slow broadband speed.

NEDA undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon said there is also a need to retool and reskill the labor force towards digital skills.

Sen. Joel Villanueva has lamented the decision of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to reject the request of NEDA to allocate P300 million for the Innovation Fund.

Acting socio-economic planning secretary and NEDA chief Karl Kendrick Chua said the government must be the one to provide the direction and impetus for innovation to prosper.

The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) has stressed the importance of using digital technologies to ensure price stability and support the agriculture value chain necessary to help build consumer confidence and gradual recovery of the domestic economy.