PHL rated ‘ready’ in Digital-Society assessment

THE Philippines was rated “ready” to become a digital society but continues to lag in the areas of quality access and digital skills, Tech For Good Institute (TFGI) reported.

In its Realizing a Confident Digital Society: Spotlight on Southeast Asia report, TFGI said the rating indicates that the Philippines has strong foundations but lags in terms of future readiness.

“Digital societies here have adequate quality access and established meaningful participation frameworks, but may need to increase readiness for future challenges, such as the risks of emerging technologies or sustainability considerations,” the report found.

“Nations that fall into this category may not be primary producers or participants in the supply chain of digital goods and technologies but are ready to act on leapfrog opportunities given solid fundamentals,” it added.

The Philippines had a score of 66.6 in foundations and 47.5 in future-readiness, leading to an overall score of 57.1 out of 100.

The report looked into four pillars—quality access, meaningful participation, productive potential, and digital resilience—in which the Philippines scored 66.8, 70.4, 39.4, and 55.6, respectively.

Quality access looks into who benefits from digitalization, which is measured through three sub-pillars: access, affordability, and reliability.

The Philippines had a score of 68.9 out of 100 in terms of access, ahead of Cambodia (57.6), Laos (64.5), and Indonesia (67.1).

However, it lagged Singapore (85), Malaysia (79.9), Thailand (75.9), Vietnam (74), and Brunei (71.6).

“The Philippines has notably doubled internet coverage since 2019, despite its initial lag compared to peers,” it said.

“This is attributable to a budget of P5.1 billion (or approximately $86.5 million) earmarked by the Department of Information and Communications Technology in 2019, of which P1.5 billion (or $25.4 million) was allocated for free WiFi in public places and state universities and colleges (SUCs),” it added.

The Philippines also scored below the regional average in affordability at 67.9, ahead only of Laos (65.8) and Cambodia (67.2).

Singapore was rated 99.2, followed by Indonesia (87.9), Brunei (87.6), Vietnam (82.5), Malaysia (81.5), and Thailand (77.3).

In terms of reliability, the Philippines scored 51.8, still below the regional average and beating out Laos (34.4), Cambodia (44.2), and Indonesia (48.7). It lagged Singapore (75.7), Vietnam (67.5), Thailand (66), Brunei (62.8), and Malaysia (62.4).

The report also looked into meaningful participation, which addresses the non-commercial public applications of digital technologies. Its components were e-government, digital literacy and open data access.

The Philippines scored 68.9 in e-government, ahead of Laos (47), Vietnam (61.9), and Brunei (66.4). It lagged Malaysia (79.2), Indonesia (77.7), Singapore (74.7), Thailand (73.4), and Cambodia (71.4).

The Philippines was among the top scorers in digital literacy at 62.7, next to Singapore (67.8) and Malaysia (66.7).

It outperformed Indonesia (60.7), Thailand (59.8), Vietnam (55), Cambodia (44.3), and Laos (33.7).

The Philippines was the top scorer in open data access at 79. 6, beating Thailand (70.3) and Singapore (68.8), Indonesia (59.8), Malaysia (56.9), and Vietnam (54.9).

Meanwhile, productive potential refers to inclusive and long-term benefits from the digital economy. It has digital competencies, future-of-work readiness, and digital innovation and competitiveness as sub-pillars.

The Philippines was among the low scorers at 27.6, ahead only of Cambodia, which scored 14.7.

The leaders were Singapore (72.4), Brunei (58.1), Malaysia (52.7), Indonesia (41.8), Vietnam (37.6), and Thailand (35.1).

In terms of future-of-work readiness, the Philippines scored 53.6, above the regional average and ahead of Laos (34.7), Cambodia (34.7), and Brunei (34.4).

The leaders were Singapore (68.2), Thailand (63.2), Malaysia (55.7), Indonesia (54), and Vietnam (53.9).

It scored lowest in digital innovation and competitiveness at 36.9, lagging Singapore (83.9), Brunei (58.6), Laos (50.2), Malaysia (48.1), Vietnam (40.8), Cambodia (39), Indonesia (38.2), and Thailand (38.1).

Meanwhile, digital resilience, which measures the long-term sustainability of digitalization in each country, looks into cyber resilience, environmental sustainability, and policy.

The Philippines was among the highest scorers in cyber resilience at 61.7, behind only Singapore, which scored 64.9, and beating out Thailand (54.3), Indonesia (50.8), Malaysia (47.5), Brunei (43.6), Vietnam (40.1), Cambodia (26), and Laos (20.6).

Its environmental sustainability score was below the regional average at 33.2 and ahead of Malaysia (29.9) and Laos (31.4).

It lagged Indonesia (41.6), Singapore (41), Cambodia (40.4), Vietnam (38.3), and Thailand (37.2).

On policy innovation, the Philippines scored 71.8, coming in second to Singapore, which scored 88.1 and outperforming Malaysia (69), Thailand (64), Brunei (62), Indonesia (61.9), Vietnam (52.6), Cambodia (49.6), and Laos (37.5).

“The Philippines has shown progress in its approach to open government, data protection, cybersecurity and policy innovation,” the report concluded.

“To further unlock the full potential of its digital society, which is touted to have among the highest penetration rates for social media, investing in broader national coverage through high-capacity infrastructure will be key,” it added.

TFGI said that the Philippines could also benefit from programs for workforce and business development in response to disruptions due to digital technologies via its robust business process outsourcing (BPO) industry.

“As a climate-vulnerable country, adaptation strategies coupled with conscious integration of environmental sustainability and digitalization roadmaps will be critical as technology’s impact on the environment increases,” it added. — Justine Irish D. Tabile