President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Monday assured Filipinos in remote areas the government will continue to work on establishing internet connections in far-flung areas since access to the Web has become a post-pandemic must-have.
Mr. Marcos made this statement as he joined a Zoom call between the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the agency’s stakeholders.
Calling himself a gatecrasher during the Zoom call, the President said: “I wanted to try for myself if what (DICT) Sec. Ivan (John Uy) was saying that was really working.”
Marcos congratulated the DICT for its free WiFi project, noting that the recent connections the agency put up were “working nicely.”
“It seems like we have established a lot of new connections so they can have internet now… especially those far away because that’s what they need, more for the children who need it for school,” he said.
“This is just the start. We will do this so we can say that all Pinoys can talk to all other Pinoys,” the President added.
“Several (remote) areas also have Internet now so we will add to these,” Mr. Marcos said. “It’s good that there are more new technologies we can use and we are taking advantage of so the whole Philippines can have the connectivity that is so important nowadays,” he said.
The DICT’s BroadBand ng Masa Project (BBMP) seeks to roll out free WiFi connections to far-flung areas in the country.
The Philippine government earlier tapped Elon Musk’s Starlink to help provide internet services in rural areas.
As of October 2022, around 30 percent of the Philippines’ 110 million population had no access to the internet, data from the government showed.
