VIEW THE PROPOSED PHILIPPINE E-COMMERCE BILL

THE GOAL of the National Information Technology Plan is to make the Philippines Asia's knowledge center. The country, however, is in danger of becoming just another destination rather than a hub for the e-business revolution if the government does not strengthen its partnership with the private sector.

This was stated by Ramon Jocson, regional director for e-business at IBM Asia Pacific Region, at an e-commerce seminar held at the Ateneo Professional Schools at Rockwell Center.

"I often hear this excuse from the government, which is that the private sector must take the lead," Jocson said. "What we need, however, is a partnership. It's not a company-to-company thing when it comes to e-business. At the outset, it should be a country-to-country thing. We will be a destination, not a hub, if we do not play. We will be an end-market, not a participant, if we do not play."

Jocson noted that, for obvious reasons, the United States is regarded as one of the three leading countries in e-commerce. The other two, however, are Scandinavia (a group of countries, actually) due to its strong infrastructure and techno-savvy, and Singapore because of strong government support.

Stressing that this was his own point of view rather than IBM's, Jocson stated that the Philippines' ability to become a major e-commerce player like those countries should be measured in terms of completeness of vision and ability to execute. Completeness of vision includes key areas such as the financial framework or payment systems, legal framework, logistics and access to infrastructure. Under ability to execute are the regulatory framework-that is, what e-businesses are not allowed to do-and human resources.

While it would seem that the Philippines has the difficult task of addressing these different areas simultaneously to catch up, some recent developments do at least show the promise of a greater partnership between the government and private sector. For example, the Department of Science and Technology has launched its flagship Virtual Center for Technology Innovation in Information Technology to encourage greater research and development collaboration among government, business and academe. On a regional level, the eAsean Task Force held its first meeting on March 2 to hammer out a draft regional e-agreement, with strong representation from both government and private sector.

For his part, Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. president and chief executive officer Manuel V. Pangilinan said that the telco would continue laying down the infrastructure that would make e-commerce and convergent services possible. Pangilinan was also at the e-commerce seminar in Ateneo.

"The first thing we did to increase bandwidth was to acquire Home Cable last year. By the middle of this year, we will be launching the broadband capabilities of Mabuhay satellite, so Internet through a Philippine satellite should be available to us by the end of this year. By the end of this year, PLDT itself, apart from offering narrowband applications through copper, would offer broadband services through ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line)," Pangilinan said.

Since legal obstacles to convergence remain, is PLDT already anticipating changes in the law, what with all the hype and infrastructure it is creating for convergent services?

"It's difficult to predict how legislation would work," Pangilinan told the Inquirer. "But the flavor of the draft laws that are being circulated in Europe and the United States is basically a benign approach by government."

He, however, admitted that it would be better if telecommunications companies like PLDT would no longer have to resort to holding firms to offer convergent services.

Meawnhile, apart from calling upon the government to "get its act together," Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, president of the Ateneo de Manila University, noted that people should also remember that e-commerce is also a disruptive technology. The Ateneo was one of the schools that signed a memorandum of agreement with the DOST for the VCTI-IT project.

Stressing that changes wrought by e-commerce would have a big socioeconomic impact on the Philippines, Nebres echoed Jocson's warning that the country might be relegated to an end-market.

"We might have successful cybermalls, but probably the products would come from Taiwan, China and other countries where goods can be made more cheaply," he said. "We need to improve the operations of local manufacturers, but the problem is that most of the money nowadays is going to these cybercompanies, not traditional companies."

According to him, e-commerce can pose the danger of accelerating the process of worker migration that the country has already been witnessing, unless the country can have the strength of will to produce truly world-class products and equip Filipinos with the right kind of education for the e-business age.