Senator Grace Poe, airing public frustrations, prodded the Duterte administration to file charges against government regulators delaying telco connectivity, an indispensable ingredient for keeping life and work normal in the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Remiss government officials must be brought to account for any further delay in setting up crucial infrastructure across the country to digitally connect the citizenry amid the pandemic,” the senator suggested on Sunday.
Poe pointed out that the Ease of Doing Business Act, as well as Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Circular 8, mandated concerned government units “to process and approve permits and clearances for the construction of infrastructures including cell sites within a maximum period of seven working days.”
“To deny our people their basic right to connectivity at this crucial period is sheer neglect and dereliction of duty,” said Poe in a statement over the weekend.
Wearing her hat as chairman of the Senate committee on public services, Poe said she expected bureaucratic challenges slowing the construction of cell sites to be promptly addressed.
Bureaucratic red tape must be effectively reduced by concerned authorities, she added, stressing that securing “a multitude of permits” such as right of way, structural, zoning, location clearance, electrical, sanitation, mechanical and occupancy compliance, approvals from the Department of Health, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, and National Commission on Indigenous Peoples “usually take a year.”
She asserted that “connectivity is a must—from health care to education and busines— in dealing with this unprecedented crisis.”
Poe added that cell towers serve to elevate antennas and other communications equipment that transmit and receive signals from mobile devices, simultaneously enabling users to maintain their connection.“Our teachers and students should not have to climb mountains or go to the side of highways or cliffsides just to get a signal,” Poe lamented, in reference to recent reports of teachers who camped out on hillsides just to attend a training webinar or be able to enrol their students online.
She recalled that DICT earlier cited the lack of infrastructure in the country, noting that only about 20,000 towers have been built compared with Vietnam’s 70,000. “It is a huge disservice to our people if we cannot even keep them connected amid the pandemic,” said Poe.