I OFTEN watch “Future Ready” (FR) presentations of high tech companies, and it makes me sad that many other countries are way ahead of the Philippines in terms of future readiness.
Although this problem could be initially perceived as being economic in nature, it could perhaps be seen as being cultural in origin. I am saying that because of our apparent penchant for hard copies, as opposed to soft copies.
In search of an explanation, I would say that this penchant has its roots in fake or faked paper documents that could easily be manufactured in some shops along Claro M. Recto Avenue in the University District. Given that as a background, I would still say that a soft copy could actually be more difficult to tamper or manufacture compared to a hard copy.
It has been many years since the Electronic Commerce Act (ECA) was passed, and yet up to now, it is still not acceptable in our culture that electronic evidence is already admissible. It is not only admissible; there is actually a provision in the ECA that there is parity or equality between hard copies and soft copies.
In fairness to the Supreme Court, it has long ago declared that even facsimile copies that come out of fax machines are already admissible. That declaration is actually many years ahead of its time, because as it is now, many years later, the Supreme Court not only accepts soft copies as evidence, it also accepts printouts of soft copies as evidence.
It’s hard for me to understand why this cultural bias has affected the private sector, but for now I would just say that hard habits die hard and it would take a long time before these would fade out. It is actually easier to understand why this cultural bias still prevails in the public sector, because government employees and officials have to be very sure that the basis for payment (ergo the evidence) is not only admissible, it also has to be defensible.
Perhaps as an initial step, we could convince the government people that there should be no problem about accepting soft copies as evidence, because the ECA already provides for it.
On the practical side however, we should understand the apprehensions of the government people, because up to now, the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of the ECA are not yet out. Either that or the IRR is not yet clear on this issue.
As I understand it, the Commission on Audit (COA) is also supposed to come out with its own guidelines pertaining to the admissibility of soft copies, but apparently that has not come out either. If only the COA would come out with that, then the government people would be more confident in accepting the admissibility rules of the ECA.
Looking at the entire process, it would seem that the bottleneck if we could call it that is the COA, because in the final analysis, it is the one with the power to disallow the payments made by the government people, if and when they would rule that the basis for the payments that are made are either lacking or not admissible for one reason or the other. Even if it could be said that the intervention of the COA would come later as part of post audit procedures, the fear of the government people remains, if the evidence presented are not accepted.
For all intents and purposes, it could be said that the government people and the COA could keep the status quo going, because both sides of the equation would remain safe by continuing with their present practices.
It could also be said that no one gets hurt by keeping the status quo, but on the other hand, it could also be said that it is not only the people who are inconvenienced, it is also the economy that gets affected. It is one thing to inconvenience the private citizens, but it is also another thing to make the businessmen suffer by making it harder for them to transact with government. As we know it, it is our national goal to increase the ease of doing business and one way of making that happen is to allow online transactions.
I say that here in the Philippines, policy lags technology, because there are many technologies that could not be used because of the lack of a policy framework that would support it.
In particular, I mentioned online transactions because if only the policy framework could be built around it, then everyone could just transact with the government online, without any need to physically go to the government offices to complete the transactions. It is very difficult to quantify the economic effects of the need for physical appearance, but common sense would tell us that if people commute to go to government offices, it would just add to slowing down the flow of traffic.
There are many ways of interpreting future readiness, but one way perhaps is to describe the outcomes rather than the means. Looking at the means for example, we know that Big Data, data analytics, the internet cloud and the Internet of Things (IOT) could already be used not only to improve public services in particular, but also to improve the quality of life in general. It is obvious that the means are already at hand, but policy frameworks are still needed to be able to make the outcomes happen.
Somehow, some ways have to be found to make policy catch up with technology. The sad reality is that technology moves so fast, so much so that there are technologies that quickly become obsolete, even before the policy frameworks are put in place.
Considering that legislative actions would take longer to pass, the immediate means could be executive orders that could be signed quickly. As it is supposed to be, the line Departments should be the ones that should identify these applicable technologies and as soon as possible, they should be the ones who will submit the policy proposals./PN
