:: Legal Bases

The Right to Information

The Bill of Rights of the 1987 Philippine Constitution guarantees the right of citizens to information on matters of public concern. This right is basic and inviolable and CeC efforts represent one potent option to provide everyone a means of access to information. This is to facilitate collaboration among individuals, groups and communities and to promote informed and intensive participation in governance, economic as well as social development.

The Millennium Development Goals

The first MDG on poverty reduction and the second on universal primary education are appropriately supported by the Philippine CeC program.

For the former, the CeCs provide unlimited opportunities for poverty reduction through ease of access to information on business, livelihood and employment opportunities in the country and abroad and provision of capability for on-line placement.

Educational benefits from the CeCs come from its capacity for electronic delivery of updated information which otherwise would remain unavailable due to limited library holdings and references. Undoubtedly, this significantly improves the quality and delivery of knowledge resources.

The 2003 WSIS Geneva Plan of Action of which the Philippines is a signatory states:
“Governments and other stakeholders, should establish multipurpose community public access points, providing affordable or free-of-charge access for their citizens to the various communication resources, notably the Internet. These access points, should to the extent possible, have sufficient capacity to provide assistance to users, in libraries, educational institutions, public administrations, post offices or other public places, with special emphasis on rural and

The place of CeCs as tools for development has been enshrined in The Medium Term Philippine Development Plan 2004 – 2010.

“The digital divide within the country will be reduced by establishing more public access points such as Community e-Centers for delivery of e-government and other services to provide universal access to information and communication services in unserved areas, link communities, facilitate trade and commerce, and empower rural communities socially, economically and politically.” Chapter 6, Item 5

The Philippine Strategic Roadmap for ICT Sector 2006-2010 emphasized:

“At the heart of the government’s effort to bridge the digital divide is the Community e-Center Program.

“Government will take all steps necessary to ensure that all citizens have access to ICT goods and services, and will, principally through Community e-Centers, provide the last mile bridge to these unserved areas.”

:: Guiding Principles

Participation. It is solely the participation of all CeC stakeholder groups that will ensure relevance, validity and credibility of the program. That being the case, stakeholder participation has been ensured in the planning process and should continue to be ensured
throughout the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the program.

The initial phase of the planning process starts with Sensing which includes a review of CeC experiences of other Asian countries.

With special attention given to experiential learning, these were inputted to a series of regional consultation workshops which advanced the following objectives: to map current CeC and CeCrelated activities undertaken by the consultation participants; to list experienced and anticipated issues and concerns and proposed strategies to address them; to solicit participant ideas on critical CeC support systems; and to identify major players in the CeC program and their ascribed roles.

The Formulating phase of the planning process starts with the strategic planning workshop and continues with the conduct of consultation meetings on the draft of the CeC Roadmap.

Inclusion. All stakeholder groups were engaged and will continue their engagement in the various phases of the crafting and implementation of the CeC Roadmap.

The participants represent the public and private sectors, civil society, interest groups and non-government organizations, the academe, local chief executives, CeC managers and representatives of the CeC management teams in the local government units, CeC
operations and management groups of the CICT–NCC FOO and the Telecommunications Office of the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC), content providers and developers, capacity building providers, representatives of CeC-like ventures in other government agencies and in the private sector, as well as infrastructure and technology providers and CeC customers.

Focus on the unserved, underserved and vulnerable groups specially children, women, and senior citizens. The priorities for additional targeted CeC sites are the unserved and underserved municipalities.

On the ground, this will allow students in these areas, who otherwise are constrained by limited library resources, access to the unlimited and updated information in the World Wide Web.

Special attention in the advocacy towards social acceptability of CeCs will be addressed towards women and senior citizens. Relevant content, inclusive of user generated subject, will be developed having in mind its potential use for wealth creation and productivity,
enhancement of community spirit and engagement in development of otherwise marginalized individuals and groups.

Global perspective; Filipino in spirit. The Philippine CeC Program promotes openness to global knowledge, technology and networks to assure their adoption and use for optimum development of the country and the Filipino.

Respect and promotion of socio-cultural values and cultural diversity. CeCs will develop culturally-appropriate interventions in response to community information needs. This will require culturally sensitive attitude, skills and behaviors on the part of CeC knowledge workers.