ANGARA: STEP TOWARDS GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS

Senator Edgardo J. Angara today urged to direct efforts on IT research and development innovation and invest in the promise of new Filipino-branded inventions and efforts to achieve global IT competitiveness.

The Economist Intelligence Unit EIU released their study last week and the Philippines slipped down from 10th place last year and now ranked 12th among 17 Asia Pacific countries. Among 66 countries worldwide that was part of the EIU study, the Philippines was number 56 again down from number 47.

The EIU study is the point of reference of all IT efforts and competitiveness of countries based on standard factors such as overall business environment, IT, infrastructure, human capital, legal environment, research and development environment, and government IT policies.

"Earlier this year, we have made efforts to pool our limited R & D resources and identify key research thrusts for 2009. We have recently forged a Memorandum of Understanding with Taiwan's ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute). Along with the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries of the Philippines Inc. (SEIPI), COMSTE and ITRI formed a tripartite alliance to review and assess the state of the country's S&T system and provide the Philippines with essential R&D support," Angara added.

A talent-attracting program dubbed as "Fast Track to Innovation" is also in the pipeline. The plan is to fund a local research team to pursue cutting edge R&D projects with Filipino expatriate scientists as the principal investigators of the projects.

Angara also authored a bill creating a Dept. of Information and Technology (DICT) to boost the country's overall competitiveness by improving the efficiency of production processes across sectors and industries, accelerating the growth of knowledge-based services, and empowering people to access unprecedented sources of information and markets and proposed to amend the Intellectual Property Code (IPC) to address issues such as the technological measures provisions (Article 11 of the WCT and Article 18 of the WPPT) and the rights management information provisions (Article 12 of the WCT and WPPT) of the Internet Treaties.

"Hopefully, these programs will address our country's weaknesses on IT competitiveness, and eventually bridge the Philippines towards a brighter horizon," ended Angara.