The Regional Consultative Workshops for the Philippine Community eCenter (CeC) Roadmap for 2011 – 2016 started out on a high note in the City of Pines (Baguio). It was an action-packed day, filled with passionate discussions, lively knowledge sharing and good cheer. The workshop was facilitated by none other than the Philippine CeC Network (PhilCeCNet) Chair, Dr. Angelo Juan Ramos, and was attended by twenty-one participants from the different CeCs in Regions I to III.
Dr. Ramos gave an overview of the Philippine CeC Situation through the showing of the 5th Knowledge Exchange Conference audio-visual presentation as well as discussed the accomplishments of the PhilCeCNet from 2008 to 2010.
The participants are then divided into two groups and were instructed to draw their vision of the CeC – how they think CeCs should look like in the year 2016. A few minutes and a lot of laughs later, both groups presented their meaningful artworks. Their presentations gave a lot of interesting suggestions on the development of the CeCs towards the coming years.
Both groups envisioned a wireless CeC that is available up to the barangay level, with up-to-date technology and an intensive content database. Alternative power sources were also put on the table as well as Internet access via satellites.
The customer-oriented CeC is also a budding idea amidst the current ideology of standardization, with the community playing a crucial role in the vision for the CeCs, no longer just passive customers but also partners in the development process. The CeCs in 2016 would have a sustainable development that will not compromise the environment.
After the two presentations, there was a discussion of the issues that might crop up in the near future. The role of the CeCs, for example, might need to adapt in a Philippine setting where everybody would already have some sort of Internet access device within five years. At that point in time, the CeCs would focus more on capacity building and educating the new members of the community about the available technologies.
The Philippine CeCs would also take a crucial role in policy making, specifically in the adaption of safeguards to protect the people from the excesses of technology. Of course, the look of the CeCs is also changing and the mobile CeC would need some careful looking into, in order to tap the potential customers that cannot travel to CeCs.
The workshop then returned to the present time, discussing the current CeC situation with four focus group sessions, each tackling the individual pillars of the Philippine CeC Program. The first session was all about infrastructure where the perennial issues of connectivity and availability of broadband were raised. The idea of having a CeC that did not rely solely on Internet connection to access relevant information, but rather utilizing high capacity data storage such as external hard drives to transport data from the centers to the peripheries so that communities can get information even off-line was placed on the discussion table as a possible solution to the issues of connectivity.
The mothballed National Broadband Network initiative was also heavily discussed with the consensus that it is necessary for the next government to try to implement a similar measure, in order to fully reach the potential of the CeCs and ICTs.
Issues with the telecommunications companies, such as their constant lobbying and the hiding of the real value and reach of their services, were also raised. There was also a clamor for the relaxation of the CICT requirement for establishing new CeCs , specifically the requirement wherein the proposed site needs to have Internet connection before a new CeC can be installed.
In terms of content development, the main issues were the setting of standards for online content as well as the localization of the current content. For the group, localization of content should be done on a case-to-case basis. It is important to find out if the content will be more effective when localized. The community should also take part in the process of developing new content since this is designed for them.
The current content of government websites is also lacking since many of the sites are still in Stage 2. A Stage 4 website, however, is needed in order for eGovernance to function effectively. There are also negative experiences in dealing with online government services (e.g. slow loading times, no/late response).
In the capacity building discussion, the focus was on the sustainability of the CeCs. CeC knowledge workers would find it difficult to commit to their CeC-related studies, especially in the proposed Masters-level courses, when the CeCs themselves are still not institutionalized. The training courses, however, are worthwhile, although there have been issues with the time constraint and overall pace of these courses.
Furthermore, the group agreed that although online training courses can be done on a case-to-case basis, it is still best to have a face-to-face course as it is more engaging and it allows students to be more focused.
The last discussion was about CeC development and management. In this aspect, the issue of the institutionalization of the CeC was discussed further. It seemed that the identity of the CeC and the other ICT-based services were still in question, and a need to finalize the roles of the CeCs and the knowledge workers was highlighted. PhilCeCNet was also a central topic in this discussion since its role in the institutionalization of the CeCs is also crucial.
At the end of the day, there were a number of questions that were raised that need to be answered in the next PhilCeC Roadmap. The question of identity appears to be our foremost priority in order to be able to figure out how we want to develop our Philippine CeCs.