The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is eyeing to pursue digital cooperation with Singapore, United States and Japan to bring in new technologies that will further improve telecom services in the country.
In a statement, DICT said it is looking forward to pursuing digital cooperation with Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Information based on the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed by the two nations during President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s state visit to Singapore last year.
Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo, DICT undersecretary for public affairs and foreign relations, met with Gerard Ho Wei Hong, Singapore ambassador to the Philippines, on January 16 to discuss further the areas of cooperation in relation to the MOU on digital cooperation, a first between the Philippines and Singapore.
“We discussed with Ambassador Ho how we can implement this MOU and which areas we should focus on. Singapore has so much experience in the area of e-governance and cybersecurity and they can share with us their best practices in these areas,” said Lamentillo.
The MOU covers digital cooperation, including digital connectivity, particularly in inter-operable systems and frameworks that enable electronic documentation; cybersecurity such as organizing training courses and technical programs through the Asean-Singapore Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence to develop and enhance skills related to cybersecurity; and digital government/e-governance, such as in the areas of digital government strategy and services as well as digital identity.
The MOU also covers, among others, the exchange of knowledge, technical expertise and best practices on measures relating to scam calls and short message services; on personal data protection; and in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, 5G, cloud computing, Internet of Things, big data, analytics and robotics.
Aside from Singapore and China, Lamentillo said DICT is also in talks with US and Japan.
“We want to bring in new technology in the country, low orbit satellites from the US, high altitude platform stations from Japan, among others,” she added.
Meanwhile, the total number of registered subscriber identity modules (SIM) reached 21.1 million as of January 16 which represents 12.5 percent of the total 169 million subscribers, according to latest data from the National Telecommunications Commission.
Of the total SIMs registered, 10.4 million were from Smart Communications Inc., 8.96 million from Globe Telecom Inc. and 1.78 million from Dito Telecommunity Corp.
