The story of Community eCenters in the Philippines started with the pilot Multi-purpose Community Telecenters (MCTs) organized by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) in coordination with partner funding institutions and other public and private agencies. The MCT project piloted two centers each in Agusan del Norte and Lanao del Norte in Southern Philippines in 1999. Conceived to be a digital inclusion effort, the centers were one-stop shops which provided the communities with Internet access, a public calling place, reading, learning and resource center to address information needs of the communities. 

There are other initiatives addressing various communities and sectors like the launch of the e-Barangay project in 2001, the setting-up of 100 CeCs as part of the “Jumpstarting Electronic Governance in Local Government Units (eLGU) Project ” of the Commission on Information and  Communications Technology National Computer Center Field Operations Office (CICT NCC FOO) which was launched in 2004.

In addition, there was the upgrading of the telecommunication exchanges into CeCs under the Telecommunications Office's (TelOf) CeC project. Similar projects/programs were likewise undertaken by other government agencies like the Farmers Information and Technology Services (FITS) Centers by DOST-Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD), Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA’s Tulay Project) and the private sector (Microsoft through its corporate social responsibility unit) and other NGOs and development institutions (Growth with Equity in Mindanao, Last Mile Initiative of USAID).

In 2006, CICT launched two projects which provided for the set up of computer facilities in selected high schools (iSchools) and for the out-of-school youths (eSkwela). As of December 2007, CICT reported a total of 755 CeCs operating in the country.