Sen. Chiz Escudero on Wednesday (Aug. 23) exhorted the youth to maximize the power of modern technology to improve the Philippines’ competitiveness in the global arena and make the country a better place for all Filipinos.
Speaking at Ignite: GCash Innovation Summit 2023, the veteran legislator said the young Filipinos have all the data or information they need in just a click of a keyboard in the internet era.
“Instantly, when you use the internet, you acquire so much knowledge that we have never experienced during our time,” said Escudero during the event at the Globe Tower in Taguig City that was attended mostly by Globe and GCash employees and business partners.
“What am I trying to say is that your generation has absolutely no excuse not to do better than we did. Your generation has absolutely no reason not to excel in what you are doing compared to how we were before. Kung ano man ‘yung narating namin noon, wala kayong karapatang hindi mapantayan man lang o malampasan iyon,” he added.
The senator shared with the attendees how connectivity and communication were a struggle back in his younger days until the passage of Republic Act 7925 or the “Public Telecommunications Policy Act of the Philippines” in March 1995 that deregulated the telecommunications industry.
“Mapantayan man lang ang nagawa ng aming generasyon dahil lahat ng inpormasyon na gusto ninyong malaman at makita, pwede nyo na malaman at makita agad-agad. Noon, kung hindi namin mabasa sa encyclopedia, hindi mo makita sa telebisyon, hindi na namin makikita na may Niagara Falls pala. Now you can also live vicariously through someone else using social media, and learn,” Escudero said.
“Changes are happening overnight. Changes are happening fast paced and we have to keep abreast. With modern technology kaya ninyong makipagsabayan kahit kanino,” he pointed out.
During the Open Forum, the senator was asked by an employee what the government can do to further move forward the digitalization services for Filipinos, to which he replied: “The government must simply let the private sector be. Let the painters paint, let the innovators innovate and let the inventors invent.”
The government, Escudero admitted, is “very slow when it comes to regulating new technology.” Hence, the Fintech companies such as GCash must be given the space to innovate, with lesser or no government intervention at all.
“The more government opens up and allows the private sector to do certain things that they want to do and at an affordable cost, then the government should allow the private sector to precisely do that. The best thing we can do for IT, for innovation and modern technology would be to let it be and not try to interfere,” he said. (ai/mnm)
