DICT told to expand rural BPO program to boost countryside job generation

Sen. Juan Edgardo M. Angara on Thursday lauded officials of the newly created Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) for spearheading the Rural Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), even as he urged them to expand and link it with the Public Employment Service Office (Peso) local offices throughout the country.

During the DICT budget hearing at the Senate, Information Secretary Rodolfo A. Salalima told the finance subcommittee, chaired by Angara, that the department has initiated a program called Rural Impact Sourcing Project, which focuses on sustainable job creation and other opportunities in the rural and underdeveloped areas in the country.

“This is a very good program. We definitely laud this and we will support its nationwide implementation,” Angara, also the vice chairman of the Senate labor committee, said in a news statement released on Thursday.

He added: “Initiatives like this is certainly a step in the right direction, as there continues to be a growing disparity in opportunities between the country’s progressive cities and the untapped rural areas.”
At present, DICT workshops have already been undertaken in the different rural areas, such as Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Kalinga, Apayao and several others in the Mindanao region.
“If we are to empower disadvantaged communities and help them to fight poverty, this is one effective way of doing it,” the senator from Aurora said.

By bringing opportunities to the rural areas, Angara added, people from these localities no longer need to relocate to get employed.

The lawmaker exhorted the DICT officials to explore the possibility of linking this project with the various provincial, city or municipal offices of Peso.

Meanwhile, the Senate panel has approved the proposed P3.5- billion budget of the DICT, and Angara promised to present and defend it in the Senate floor for plenary approval.

“You have a gargantuan task ahead of you, and I think you will need all the support that you can get in order to fulfill your mandate,” Angara, one of the authors of the law that created the DICT, said.

The DICT’s priority projects include providing free Wi-fi in public places and Internet access to remote barangays.

Congress split the former Department of Transportation and Communications into the Department of Transportation and the DICT to speed up ICT development in the country.

The DICT also oversees cyber security, monitors cybercrime and implements e-governance and high-tech connectivity between agencies.

Source: https://goo.gl/0zt90M