Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto on Friday said he believes Senator Gringo Honasan, whom he describes as a “silent workhorse”, can lead the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) once he assumes his post as its new chief.
Recto made the pronouncement after Honasan confirmed that he has already accepted the offer of President Duterte to head the DICT.
“Greg is a silent workhorse in a chamber of showhorses. He has always been after good policies not after good publicity,” Recto said in a statement.
He also described how Honasan did not give a hoot at being credited for his contributions in the law creating the DICT, the modernization of the state weather bureau and free Wi-Fi.
Recto also underscored the importance of the DICT, which directly affects millions of Filipinos who avail Internet and mobile services.
“It needs to be improved because every 10 percentage points increase in broadband penetration is said to boost the GDP by 1 percent,” Recto said.
“His marching order is in the DICT law : To give the Filipino access to quality, affordable, reliable ICT service, or in simple consumer language, service without dropped calls, dead spots, disappearing signals and slow Internet speed,” he added.
Once Honasan assumes the post, Recto claimed that the immediate challenge he needs to address is to assure the public, the Senate included, that the third provisional telco player will not compromise national security and will be able to meet its rollout schedule and service deliverables on time.
Concerns over national security were raised after the consortium including a foreign firm was recently chosen to be the provisional third telco player in the country.
“Many of the problems we confront today — from traffic to illiteracy to health care — have ICT solutions which can ease the pain they cause or make them totally go away. Another area of concern is our nation’s defense against cyber attacks because an enemy with a missile is as dangerous as one with malware,” Recto said. /kga