Sona 2009 - ICT

Assignment # 7
On the assumption that you heard/read the SONA of the President last month, (July 2000), identify at least 3 areas related to ICT and identify how these areas can improve our quality of life.

ICT is an abbreviation for Information and Communications Technology.

Based on the full text transcript of the State of the Nation Address of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the year 2009 that I’ve read from this website, here are the three areas that the President mentioned that I think is related with the field of ICT.


“..Sa telecommunications naman, inatasan ko ang Telecommunications Commission na kumilos na tungkol sa mga sumbong na dropped calls at mga nawawalang load sa cellphone. We need to amend the Commonwealth-era Public Service Law. And we need to do it now….”

In this part of the president’s speech, the positive impact for the people is quite obvious. By amending the Commonwealth-era Public Service Law, millions of consumers of telecom companies will benefit by being protected from anomalies concerning the disappearance of cellphone loads. Since cellphones play an important role in the lifestyle of most Filipinos nowadays it is safe to say that cellphone load is now being included as part of the budget of expenses for most Filipinos …and saving money from being stolen is always a good idea especially on time of crisis.

“..Kung noong nakaraan, lumakas ang electronics, today we are creating wealth by developing the BPO and tourism sectors as additional engines of growth. Electronics and other manufactured exports rise and fall in accordance with the state of the world economy. But BPO remains resilient. With earnings of $6 billion and employment of 600,000, the BPO phenomenon speaks eloquently of our competitiveness and productivity. Let us have a Department of ICT….”

This is the part where the president talks about the BPO (Business P Outsourcing) sector and its contribution to our country by providing jobs for Filipinos thus increasing our competitiveness and productivity. I think that this part implies a better future for Filipinos by providing more jobs. The president also mentioned creating a department solely for ICT. This idea may improve our way of life because through the creation of a specialized department solely for ICT, there will be centralization of ways in addressing ICT issues in our country.


“..In 2001, I said we would finance fully automated elections. We got it, thanks to Congress….”

The full automation of the 2010 election is probably one of the major development in our country that is related to information technology that if materialized will put to end to the obsolete and laborious manual election. This development will improve our quality of life in a way by making the election much easier to conduct compared to the manual election system.