EO draft for LGUs to speed up permit approval for telco projects up for Duterte’ signing: DICT

June 13, 2017

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has prepared a draft executive order for President Rodrigo Duterte's signing for local government units to speed up  approval of permits being requested by the telecommunication firms for installation and operation of their services. In a press briefing in Malacanang, DICT Secretary Rodolfo Salalima said his office wants to replicate the recently unveiled free wifi access on Epifanio delos Santos Avenue (Edsa). "We want to replicate what happened in that project and I want to employ it throughout the country. Even as now, I have a pending draft of an executive order with the Office of the President limiting the time with which the LGUs and other local government agencies have to act on the permits of the telcos for the purpose of installing and operating the services," he said. He noted while the Philippines was ahead of Vietnam in commercializing the mobile service, the latter has about 70,000 cell sites, while here it is only about 16,000. He lamented some big subdivisions did not want the telcos to build cell sites in their areas and yet they were complaining about slow Internet connection and high number of dropped calls. Salalima noted that in the provinces, when a telco wants to build a cell site, it would usually entail 25 permits from the LGU. This would take about eight months or more or none at all. "So I drafted this executive order for the President to sign. Even before the President could sign, I already issued a letter addressed to all LGUs I said,'This is a project of national significance.' Public service cannot wait, you have to issue your permit in nine days time, beyond which, you will suffer the wrath of government. They are moving. But I feel that with the executive order, they will move faster than what I ordered them," Salalima said. The DICT chief recalled during a summit, the telcos have committed to accelerate Internet connection by September 16. "I will simply follow it up and hope that by September 16, we have a fast Internet as what we did in Edsa," Salalima said. The free wifi service on Edsa was unveiled on Independence Day. Salalima also reiterated Duterte's earlier warning if the local telecom companies would not improve their services, the government would accept foreign competitors. But he said the foreign companies should be big enough to compete with the duopoly - Globe and PLDT. "I said, get a third party operator with a big local component and a very big partner from abroad because they have to have deep pockets to compete with the duopoly," he said. Salalima said his office also asked the president to issue an EO urging all government departments to migrate all their systems and processes with the DICT to improve their online services. "People need no longer go from place to place just to contact all these departments. Through our portal, one stop shop porta, the people, even those in the provinces, can use our portal to transact, say for example, with NBI (National Burea of Investigation), the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue), and other government agencies," he said. He said the proposed EO would only be to execute the portal plan. He noted that the BIR is one of the 125 minor agencies of government that transferred its data and processes with the DITC. He expressed hope that the other departments and agencies would transfer with the DICT within six months. (Celerina Monte/DMS)