Cyber Corridor: A huge success, a huge legacy - PGMA
Davao City -- President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday (Wednesday) hailed the country’s cyber industry as a strategic success and said whoever will succeed her in June should build upon what her administration has achieved in the industry to bring the Philippines to the verge of the first world in 20 years.
The President, who completed a one-day, four-city tour Wednesday with a visit to the Concentrix call center facility inside the Damosa IT Park here in the city, said that while much remains to be done in the cyber industry sector, she will be turning over in June to a new government “a new Philippines that is ready for the challenges of the first world.”
Earlier in the day, the President visited Iloilo, Bacolod and Cebu.
She said the strategic initiatives in information and communications technology (ICT) she launched at the start of her tenure in 2001 have turned the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector in the country into a $7.3 billion industry as of last year, enough to challenge, she said, the supremacy of India’s $9 billion-a-year call center sector.
“From scratch with only 2,000 workers before I became President, we have created a global powerhouse: the Philippine BPO industry,” said the President as she spoke before the officers of the ICT Davao Inc., the umbrella group for the more than 220 firms engaged in ICT-related business in the region.
Davao city is one of the 10 cities nationwide billed as “new wave cities “ of the Cyber Corridor, the ICT component of a 2006 program that mapped out five “Super Regions” for focused strategic development to hasten the tempo of national economic advance under the Arroyo administration. Also intended to move away certain industries from congested Metro Manila, the Cyber Corridor stretches from the Pampanga urban centers to Davao where ICT potentials and opportunities abound, like in Metro Manila and Metro Cebu.
According to Wit Holganza, a BPO entrepreneur and president of ICT Davao, they are highly encouraged by the Cyber Corridor concept so that her group is looking at making Davao the preferred destination for ICT investments, products and services.
President Arroyo said the strategic initiatives toward the Cyber Corridor have resulted in the dramatic rise in figures for cyber industry or ICT activities, especially the call center employment in the country.
She said that as of end 2009, a total of 446,000 were employed in the BPO sector, compared to the measly 2,400 in Y2000. For 2010, BPO employment nationwide is projected to shoot up to 1 million.
Other dramatic figures cited by the President were the increase of cell phone units in use nationwide to 170 million from 4 million in 2004 which account for the estimated 500 million to 600 million text messages and mobile calls reported each day; increase to 24 million as of September last year in the number of internet users in the country (from only 2 million in Y2000); and P5.5 billion in investments posted in the ICT sector in the first quarter of 2001.
The President said that the remarkable improvements in the Philippine cyber industry sector helped much to bail out the country from economic chaos and the political turmoil 10 years ago.
“The economy then was jammed in reverse and few investments and jobs were being created. It was a time of low salaries and high inflation”, she said.
“Into this dismal picture we stepped. I did not seek the Office of the President in 2001, it was thrust upon me. But rather than shirk from this onerous task, we rolled up our sleeves, determined to turn the Philippines around,” she added.
She said the huge success of the cyber industry was attained by encouraging billions of investments in broadband services, providing the appropriate policy and legal environment like the creation of the Commission on ICT and removing too much government interference in the industry and supporting the industry with development programs for human capital, as well.
The President said her revisiting of the Cyber Corridor is a review of the legacy of accomplishments she will leave the Filipino people when she steps down in June. (OPS)
El Niño News Dispatch
BSWM leads cloud seeding
El Niño is already felt in Cagayan Valley Region. In a report sent to DA Secretary Arthur C. Yap by DFA RFU II Regional Executive Director Dr. Andrew B. Villacorta, around 230,560 hectares of rice and 202,471 hectares of corn are already affected. Request for the cloud seeding operations were sent to the Bureau of Soils and Water Management (BSWM), the lead agency of the Department of Agriculture mandated to conduct cloud seeding (per EO 116). In an immediate response, Dr. Silvino Q. Tejada. BSWM Director, requested one PAF Cessna 210 plane to conduct sorties in the entire region affected by El Niño. The said aircraft is based in Cauayan Airport, Isabela and was able to complete 10 sorties as of February 3, 2010. To augment the operation of the PAF plane and to salvage a large number of areas affected in the Cagayan, Isabela, Quirino and Nueva Vizcaya grid including the watershed areas of Magat Dam, BSWM is preparing for the deployment of a bigger plane that could dispense 500 kilos of salt per sortie.
Also affected by El Niño is the Visayas region, particularly Negros Occidental, the country’s Sugar Industry capital. At the initial height of drought, the Provincial Agricultural Office of Negros Occidental, together with BSWM cloud seeding officer (BSWM-CSO) Ms. Leilanie G. Naga, conducted a validation of the reported areas affected by El Niño in the province. Result of their assessment showed that around 7,000 hectares of rice and 343 hectares of corn which are in their reproductive stages were already affected. In addition, around 28,000 hectares of newly planted and rationed sugarcane in the municipalities of Magallon, Himaymaylan, Hinigaran and La Castellana were already threatened. The province will be losing some PhP 1.7 billion worth of crops if there will be no intervention to mitigate the effects of El Niño. In response to the request of the sugar planters, the provincial government of Negros, through Governor Isidro P. Zayco, initially funded the hiring of one Cessna plane to be used in cloud seeding. The base of operation is in Silay Airport, Silay City. Through the BSWM, cloud seeding operation commenced last February 1, 2010 and had already completed a total of 9 sorties. Cloud seeding operations will continue in the next few months as the El Niño phenomenon worsens. Initial reports showed that rains were already felt in some parts of the province.
Relative to this, the Bureau of Soils and Water Management is facilitating the deployment of aircraft to conduct cloud seeding operations over Regions 4 and 11. The areas affected are Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal and Quezon (CALABARZON) and Davao del Sur and Davao del Norte in Mindanao.
Gov’t task force Implementing farm measures vs El Nino
The Department of Agriculture (DA) and six of its attached agencies are carrying out assorted intervention measures that include optimizing water delivery to irrigation systems and deploying mobile animal diagnostic laboratories to mitigate the impact of the El Niño dry spell on the farm sector.
DA Undersecretary Bernie Fondevilla said these measures will involve the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) as well as irrigators’ associations (IAs) in El Niño-affected areas; the Bureaus of Soils and Water Management (SWM), of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), and of Animal Industry (BAI); National Food Authority (NFA); and the Food Terminal Inc. (FTI).
El Niño refers to the unusual warming of sea surface temperatures along the equatorial Pacific that is usually characterized by below-average rainfall, which leads to a dry spell.
Fondevilla said these mitigation measures were taken up during the latest meeting of the interagency task force that had been created by President Arroyo to work on intervention programs for this latest dry spell, which is expected to last till July.
“Although the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (Pagasa) foresees the El Niño attack to be a moderate one, the weather bureau has projected that it will last longer this time until July,” he said.
The DA’s regional field units (RFUs) will help implement some of these measures especially those that need close supervision at the municipal level, Fondevilla said.
“Such measures include scheduling the release of irrigation diversion equipment for the Angat Maasim River Irrigation System (AMRIIS), which will be implemented by the DA and NIA, and the linking of canals from the Upper Pampanga River Integrated Irrigation System (UPRIIS) to the Angat-Maasim Dam covering 6,000 hectares in Bulacan, to avoid delays in the planting season,” he said.
He added that “the NIA will team up with IAs in optimizing water delivery and scheduling to national irrigation systems and rehabilitating existing irrigation canals through the drainage reuse system.”
With the assistance of the Philippine Air Force, the BSWM is now carrying out seeding operations in critical drought areas, Fondevilla noted.
BSWM and BFAR will also install 6,000 units of shallow tube wells and pumps or engine sets for fisheries, which will cover 18,000 hectares of El Niño-affected in 47 provinces, and establish open source wells for community food gardens producing high value commercial crops (HVCCs).
The DA’s field operations service and RFUs will help farmers shift to alternative crops to limit losses.
For instance, the Department is ready to help palay farmers shift to corn by providing them hybrid corn seeds, Fondevilla said.
The DA will also provide seed subsidies in the form of drought- and saline-tolerant rice variety seeds as well as corn, vegetables and root crops, he said.
Fondevilla said these intervention measures also include the continuous field surveillance in areas during highly susceptible crop stages; providing rodenticides to local government units and mobilizing communities for massive control activities; providing the livestock and poultry subsectors with veterinary drugs and biologics; and deployment by BAI of mobile diagnostic labs.
The Department, he said, is realigning P1.7 billion from its regular budget this year to bankroll these measures.
Of this amount, the DA is carrying out P570 million-worth of intervention measures for the palay sector, Fondevilla noted.
Under its 2010 El Niño Mitigation Program, the DA will also set aside P613.7 million to carry out intervention for the corn sector; another P411 million for the HVCC subsector; and P117.4 million more for fisheries.
As early as December last year, the DA had already created its own task force to carry out its program to raise crop production along with farmers’ incomes in the face of a then-looming El Niño” attack.
This DA task force is focusing its mitigation measures on 23 “highly vulnerable” areas and 24 “moderately vulnerable” areas in the country.
These areas considered highly vulnerable to an onslaught of El Niño are Ilocos Sur, Ilocos Norte, La Union, Pangasinan, Cagayan, Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Pampanga, Tarlac, Zambales, Cavite, Rizal, Occidental Mindoro, Palawan, Capiz, Iloilo, Negros Occidental, Misamis Oriental, Zamboanga City, Sarangani and South Cotabato.
Abra, Apayao, Benguet, Ifugao, Mt Province, Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Batangas, Laguna, Quezon, Romblon, Sorsogon, Aklan, Antique, Bohol, Samar, Zamboanga Norte, Zamboanga Sibugay, Zamboanga Sur, Bukidnon, Davao Oriental, Davao Sur and Davao City are considered as moderately vulnerable to the El Niño phenomenon.
Total agricultural production losses under a mild El Niño scenario could reach P8.09 billion, and P20.46 billion under a severe dry spell, Fondevilla said.
Fondevilla said that based on studies made by the Department, a total of 453,204 hectares of land planted to palay, 227,843 hectares of corn areas and 14,160 hectares in the fisheries sector are threatened under a prolonged El Niño attack. (DA Press Office)
