PAGBABAGO

Our national development goals over the past years have focused on developing a “globally competitive economy, inclusive growth, a high trust and resilient society, an improved quality of life in both urban and rural communities, and to graduate to a knowledge economy.” In short, to move from a lower middle-income country to an upper middle-income country. But recent indicators seem to show that instead of moving forward, we had been pushed downward. Our expected growth had not been sustainable. Perhaps, we should pause for a while, reflect on the above goals and re-focus on some strengths that we are able to manage more successfully. This could be in the management of knowledge through effective sharing and utilization. This is particularly a need today with our goals of decentralization. Too, the Mandanas ruling which is now being implemented provides the opportunities for enhanced delivery of services through decentralization. An idea born 18 years ago and still very much alive today will be holding its annual conference to examine its priorities in the light of opportunities such as more advanced technologies that it can use in addressing the needs of our communities. A partnership between non-government organizations and the Department of Information and Communication Technology (DICT), the Philippine Community eCenter Network (PhilCecNet) during its forthcoming conference on July 19-22 in Baguio City, will focus on the theme, “Digital inclusion and transformation for all people; potentials and partnerships on advanced technologies and innovations.” The PhilCecNet is a learning and collaborative community of eCenter stakeholders which is guided by technical advisers from DICT.  It is set up as a digital centrum where members of the community contribute in the sharing of its “intellectual capital.” Through blogs, forums, emails, websites, members are able to share their knowledge with others. But to succeed in achieving its purpose of connecting people through knowledge sharing, requires an element of trust and openness. We realize that this is easier said than done. Earlier surveys had shown little trust in government and NGOS.   Corruption, incompetence and poor performance are reasons why government has neutral trust as compared to the church and the academe. And today, with rising disinformation and fake news, the challenge in building trust is much greater than ever before. Thus, we hope that PhilCeCNet and similar knowledge-sharing networks can work toward building a community of knowledge sharing instead of hoarding, of continually motivating partners and advocates to work in promoting transparency and openness in governance. Knowledge sharing networks can address existing weaknesses today in local government.  These include lack of accountability, poor delivery in services, corruption, inadequate response to environmental disasters, and clan conflicts, and that subsidiarity be observed by central authority so that social and political decision-making should be devolved at the lowest level. (My email, [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]))