EDITORIAL - 95% digitalization

The world is headed inexorably toward digitalization, so it’s good to hear President Marcos laying down a target of digitalizing 95 percent of government processes. Apart from speeding up transactions with the government, the shift to e-governance is meant to cut red tape and consequently opportunities for corruption.

E-governance, however, does not mean merely installing computers and inputting data in government offices. Procedures must also be streamlined and overhauled to eliminate redundancies. Red tape, which opens the doors to the payment of so-called facilitation fees, can still be designed into digital processes in doing business with the government.

Transitioning to e-governance will also require sufficient digital infrastructure. This is one of the weaknesses in this country, which has one of the slowest internet speeds in the region, and where heavy rainfall or a strong thunderstorm can easily disrupt telecommunications signals. Security problems and right-of-way issues have set back the expansion of telco facilities in many parts of the country. The government must work closer with the private sector in resolving such issues.

Shifting to e-governance also requires training and upskilling of the workforce. Even public school teachers couldn’t be upskilled quickly and efficiently enough when the country was forced to shift to remote learning at the height of the COVID pandemic.

E-governance also calls for a sophisticated cyber security system, especially with the dizzying evolution of artificial intelligence, which is facilitating the deployment of malware. Officials of the Department of Information and Communications Technology have pointed out that the government cannot recruit enough skilled workers to protect the state’s digital data systems from hackers.

Government digitalization works best when properly linked and interoperable. This didn’t happen even at the height of the COVID pandemic lockdowns, when digital contact tracing efforts turned out to be a disaster. Little has changed since the lockdowns. Currently, different national government agencies and local government units are pursuing their own digitalization programs, with only a few having their data interlinked.

Setting a target of 95 percent digitalization in governance is a welcome development. But the government must be prepared to confront the challenges in getting there.