Tales from the ‘crypto’
Digitalization of the country has already taken too long to prosper, after all, the national ID system alone is in fits and starts.
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Daily TribuneDigitalization of the country has already taken too long to prosper, after all, the national ID system alone is in fits and starts.
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The Gen Z is said to be fueling the country's move to digitalization, dragging Boomers and possibly even Gen Xers along, kicking and screaming against non-fungible tokens and non-physical assets.
Yet the road is long and littered with horrifying words like cryptocurrency, microloans, and roboadvisors.
What in the world are those? A chunk of the Philippine population remains befuddled by the world of fintech.
This leads us to ask: Will it be "mission accomplished" for Secretary Ivan John Uy by the end of six years?
It's only been over a hundred days under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., but the Department of Information and Communications Technology chief seemed confident his "marching order" could be done in such a time frame.
In an interview with the government's news agency, Uy said he was told: "We need to digitalize the Philippines."
The dream, first of all, is to do away, once and for all, with what Uy calls "restrictive and medieval" bureaucracy, where ordinary citizens end up in long lines, filling up multiple forms ad nauseam, or coming up to dead -ends when connecting to government agencies online.
If the Philippines is to strengthen its economy and arm its people with sufficient technological savvy to enable competitiveness in an increasingly digital world, then this direction is on point.
Digitalization of the country has already taken too long to prosper, after all, the national ID system alone is in fits and starts.
Launched in 2019, Philippine Identification System or PhilSys is meant to ease transactions requiring proof of identity. As of August 2022, more than 72 million Filipinos, or 78.6 percent of the targeted 92 million by yearend had registered for the national ID, reported the Philippine Statistics Authority in September.
Secretary Uy said the DICT will also work with legislators to address the bureaucracy problem by making amendments to existing rules "to free up and make our bureaucracy more conducive to technology-enabled governance and a technology-enabled economy."
The pandemic sped up this journey to digitalization, at least on the part of consumers learning to navigate e-commerce.
A "mental shift," as it has been called by fintech experts, led the way for expansive growth in the local e-commerce industry, boosting as well the financial industry.
Yet for all the optimistic outlook, unassailable facts remain to challenge the DICT at this point.
Internet connectivity is one — and ensuring that everywhere in the country is wired, so to speak, will take time and money. How much is the Marcos government allotting for the various infrastructure necessary to connect the entire archipelago?
The need for wider and better connectivity is paramount as electronic payments and digital financial services continue to rise in volume and value, giving previously "unbanked" Filipinos the tools to keep up with the changing times.
E-wallets are becoming the norm, with even the older population adopting the mode of transaction which is also now being used even in sari-sari stores.
If the government acts quickly to educate the people about the practical aspects of digitalization, then perhaps soon, more Filipinos will be wielding words like crypto without hyperventilating.
