Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda (left), DICT Secretary Henry Aguda (Facebook)

Economist-solon Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda has described newly-installed Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Henry Aguda as "very qualified" for his new position.

These was just one of the good things that Salceda said about the newest Marcos Cabinet member.

"He is very qualified, and my hopes for him and the DICT are up," Salceda said of Aguda, who he congratulated on Friday, March 21.

"Secretary Aguda comes from the financial technology sector, an area of our economic life that I have championed as the legislator with the greatest number of fintech related bills and laws. Secretary Aguda also has a strong background in economics, which is welcome for a post so critical to our development," the Bicol solon said.

Salceda, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, vowed to advocate for Aguda's speedy confirmation.

The veteran congressman says he's looking forward to working with Secretary Aguda on a number of key priorities.

"First, I hope he commits to making all of our major regional cities fully covered by 5G. This means aggressively expanding the government’s portfolio of telco towers for common use.  This is the lowest hanging fruit for the DICT, if we are talking about improving our digital infrastructure,' he said.

Salceda is also batting for a DICT gameplan on what the government will do in a possible future where cryptocurrencies become more mainstream, including the possibility of maintaining some strategic exposure to the asset. "This is not to promote cryptocurrencies but to make sure we do not get left behind if the world moves towards them."

"Third, I hope the DICT will push for national artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning institutes across our major state universities. Bicol University is willing to host one, if the DICT needs a place to get it started," he said.