MANILA — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr urged lawmakers to “help accelerate the approval” of ICT-related bills, especially on e-governance, as he noted the country’s low global ranking on e-governance.

He also said the government needs the private sector’s help as the Philippines ranks 89th out of 103 countries in the United Nations’ E-Government Survey.

“That is not an encouraging number,” Marcos said in his keynote speech at the National Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Summit.

He said the survey “assesses the digital government’s landscape across members-states of the UN.”

“This assessment of our performance is at the very least, worrying. We experienced actually a regression, in other words, other countries have progressed, we have not progressed quite as much,” he said.

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Marcos said government agencies should adapt to technological innovations in the same way that private firms di at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is up to us who are in the government to learn these new technologies, to learn these new techniques and to take full advantage so that those of us the government are able to provide services that we can to our people,” the President said.

Marcos assured ICT investors and leaders who attended the event that his administration will “facilitate the swift passage of e-governance and e-government bills.”

“I am happy to report that the last meeting fo the LEDAC which is the liaison body between the executive and the legislature, this came up and it looks like, well the e-governance and the e-government bill will be consolidated but they are working on it,” he said.

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