MANILA, Philippines?The country?s telecommunication service providers should quickly build up the connectivity of six provinces to enable the seamless electronic transmission of the results of the May 10 elections from those areas that have a combined three million voters, Catanduanes Representative Joseph Santiago said in a statement.

"Telecommunication service providers will be doing the republic and our democracy a great service once they can find ways to enhance the connectivity of those areas found to have inadequate or no connectivity at all," said Santiago, chairman of the House committee on information and communications technology.

Santiago, now running for governor of Catanduanes, was responding to a Commission on Elections (Comelec) report warning that poor connectivity in six provinces?Abra, Benguet, Samar, Leyte, Zamboanga, and Tawi-Tawi?could delay the electronic relay of the poll results from those areas.

The six provinces were found to have "problematic" communication lines, the Comelec report said.

The six rural provinces had been left behind in the rollout of advanced telecommunication facilities because they are less profitable than highly urbanized areas, said Santiago, former chief of the National Telecommunications Commission.

"Nonetheless, in the spirit of nation-building, telecommunication service providers should now commit extra capacity?spend extra if necessary?to extend reliable connectivity to these areas," Santiago said.

Moving forward, Santiago renewed his call for the possible grant of financial incentives to encourage broadband service providers to invest in high-speed Internet access infrastructure in the countryside.

"We really have to ensure the balanced development of advanced telecommunication infrastructure across all rural provinces to build up the entire national economy," Santiago said.

"Three out of four Filipinos live in the rural areas. Connecting them to the world via broadband is absolutely imperative to build up our whole economy," he said.

All Filipinos deserve the equal opportunity to enrich their lives through the benefits of affordable broadband and other modern communication technologies, he added.

He said dependable broadband access offers numerous new opportunities to rural communities?for small enterprises to grow and create jobs, for homes and schools to improve learning, for farmers to reach all potential markets and share new methods, even for ordinary people to simply communicate or obtain helpful information.