BALANGA CITY – Bataan 2nd District Rep. Albert “Abet” Garcia district on Thursday announced that the province was ready for blockchain and other emerging technologies as the Department of Information and Communications Technology committed full support to Bataan.
The congressman even cited a law that authorizes the Authority of the Freeport Area of Bataan to formulate policies on emerging technologies.
He said that his brother Gov. Jose Enrique Garcia III, while then congressman, principally authored a resolution that was approved into RA 11453, otherwise known as “An Act further strengthening the powers and functions of AFAB.”
Under this law, AFAB will go into research and development, engineering, medical education, information and communications technology, including emerging and future technologies such as artificial intelligence technology, blockchain and others.
Cong. Garcia said that with respect to blockchain, distributed ledger technology and financial technology solutions, AFAB under administrator Emmanuel Pineda has formulated a policy on the Offshore Blockchain and Financial Technology Solutions (OBFTS).
This policy, he said, provides the lawful basis for the regulation and control of OBFTS initiatives to ensure fair, honest and responsible conduct of business activities.
“Here in Bataan, we can provide you the regulatory framework so that things would be more legitimate, stable and secure which is what AFAB has been doing,” Garcia told blockchain experts as well as global speakers and businessmen.
The congressman mentioned RA 11453 as one of the reasons why Bataan was chosen as venue for the first annual Global Blockchain Summit on the concluding day Thursday at the Bataan People’s Center in Balanga City.
He cited the construction of a bridge that will connect Bataan and Cavite through Manila Bay that will considerably cut travel time. He said that Bataan has a very high growth potential so that businesses can grow simultaneously with the growth of the province and the entire region.
“Simply put, here in Bataan we can host, regulate, facilitate, and give very generous fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to these new technologies including blockchain giving you the blanket of security and legitimacy,” Garcia said.
“Our local government and people are very welcoming of these new technologies. The governor spoke yesterday that test bases are already being done and we already have online digital asset back trading platform in the Freeport Area of Bataan in Mariveles powered by iwave,” the congressman said.
Garcia said the governor is now talking with the Binance to do the Binance Academy together with the Bataan Peninsula State University so that students can be taught programming, encoding to provide the talent for the new technology.
“Bataan can be your proof of concept, Bataan can provide an ecosystem, the test case environment for your technology,” the congressman said. “I would like you to join Bataan, let us join and collaborate together to make it more resilient, stable and inclusive proof. We can democratize capital and the distribution of wealth for a better world and we can start right here in Bataan.”
DICT
DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy thanked all those who joined the first Global Blockchain Summit which was held in partnership with DICT with the support of the Bataan provincial government, Balanga City government under Mayor Francis Garcia. and AFAB.
Uy said that Filipinos have the capacity to recover and bounce back stronger despite the challenges faced for two years due to the pandemic
“One of the silver linings is that we are pushed to embrace digital transformation in every aspect of our lives. We are able to quickly adapt to the demands of the new normal and most importantly we are able to maximize the potentials of new and emerging technologies as we move forward,” he said.
“Even amidst the global pandemic and today here in Bataan, this vision comes to reality as we highlight the crucial proof of emerging web 3.0 and the blockchain industry that will play a big part in generating employment, investments, countryside development in our economic arena,” the secretary said.
Uy said that it was discussed in the first session Wednesday that the Philippines ranks one of the top countries in terms of digital asset ownership. The next six years, he said, are very promising for this industry and the Philippines will take a big part.
“As the country fully transforms and transitions to the new normal under this new administration, the DICT remains steadfast in creating more programs and projects that hope to address the growing demand from consumers, builders and the makers of this industry and to stimulate the growth of emerging technologies in the Philippines,” he said.
Uy noted that this program makes ways to explore the potentials of emerging technology development, enabling ecosystem to support and sustain the growth of industry.
Under this program, he said, the DICT conducted this Global Blockchain Summit which convened the various 3.0 web blockchain experts, practitioners and interested individuals all over the world to explore the latest industry insights and best practices as well as a deep dive into fruitful discussions with each other.
“With new and emerging technologies propagating the fabric of our society, the need to invest upskilling and re-skilling and right skilling initiatives for educated and well skilled work force remains one of our agency’s top priorities,” Uy said.
He noted that they also initiated the tech grants, a free and self-based self-development program aimed at providing Filipinos with relevant skills and technical knowledge to benefit from the jobs and opportunities produced by the ICT industry.
“President Bongbong Marcos acknowledges the opportunities in this new digital economy and he directed the DICT as the primary agency to carry on this mandate. We are helping many of the other departments such as DOLE, Department of Migrant Workers, CHED, TESDA in order to formulate more training and more skills upgrading programs that will develop our IT professionals to solve the gap in the demands of the IT industry,” Uy said.
He added that in order to solve skills mismatch, the industry helps the Filipino people develop the local talents to improve the qualifications and employability in this future economy.
“DICT commits to continuously work with all the other government agencies with future- looking local government units like Bataan and with private organizations for us to improve our existing initiatives and calibrate and synergize our efforts,” Uy said.
