The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is seeking additional funding from the Department of Budget and Management to sustain the rapid growth of the eGovPH platform and prevent future service disruptions.

DICT Undersecretary for E-Government David Almirol Jr. said the government's digital infrastructure requires significant upgrades as usage of the platform continues to exceed expectations.

According to Almirol, the service interruption experienced in April, which affected several government digital services for about five hours, was not caused by a cyberattack but by a sudden spike in user demand that overwhelmed the platform's cloud capacity.

"Usage surged significantly. It was like an electrical system being overloaded because demand exceeded our capacity, eventually exhausting our available cloud resources," Almirol said.

To keep services online during the outage, the DICT activated backup systems and redundancy resources originally reserved for disaster recovery operations.

Almirol said the agency is now working with the DBM to secure additional funding to support the continued operation of 28 digital government platforms, including eGovPH, the digital national ID, eLGU, eGovChain, eGovAI, and eGovCloud.

The DICT reported that eGovPH has now exceeded 56 million downloads and processed more than 800 million transactions since its launch.

The platform's usage grew by 700 percent over the past year and is currently recording an average of 100,000 downloads daily, surpassing the agency's original target of 30 million users by 2028.

Almirol said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has directed government agencies to reduce red tape, eliminate long lines, and make public services more accessible through digitalization.

He also highlighted that the eGovPH platform was developed entirely by DICT personnel, demonstrating the capability of the agency's e-government team to build and manage large-scale digital systems.

The eGovPH app serves as a one-stop platform for various government services, including digital identification, social welfare programs, permits and licenses, local government transactions, and citizen feedback mechanisms.

The platform currently integrates services from more than 1,300 government systems and is one of 28 digital platforms managed by the DICT's E-Government Office.

According to the DICT, the continued rise in downloads and transactions reflects growing public reliance on eGovPH as a primary gateway for accessing government services online.