Dr. Segundo Romero, senior fellow at the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) said that the CeCs should service the people by fostering a sense of community.
One of the major projects carried out by the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT), the CeCs are designed to provide public access points to as many communities as possible. The centers are equipped with multimedia PCs connected to the Internet and all-in-one printers -- a similar set-up found in most Internet cafes in the country. Romero, however, said that today's CeCs should extend beyond the features of the run-of-the-mill Net cafes.
'Internet cafes service individuals. CeCs should service the community as a whole. CeCs should allow communities to converse. CeCs should create a sense of being a community, sort of like an artesian well,' said Romero. He added that computer facilities are important, but the contents play a much more significant role.
Dr. Romero said that ICT is the country's answer to making a nation of the country's 7,100 islands. A specific example of an ICT application is a Community e-Center or CeC. The centers were designed to serve as a venue for disseminating and mobilizing knowledge for increased awareness in ICT. The centers are also designed to further develop existing technologies and eventually increase productivity for all.
'It (CeCs) could do so much for the people. It could house electronic copies of all-weather community databases -- fiesta souvenirs, telephone directories, town information, and genealogical references, to name a few. It could provide an electronic version of the town's history. The possibilities are endless,' said Romero.
CeC strategy
For Romero, CeCs must be beneficiary-oriented and designed from the ground up, not the other way around. The reason is that it is easier to control the direction of CeCs when you build it around the needs of the people, instead of creating a technological framework that will be forced on the people.
The key to sustaining this target beneficiary-oriented CeC is to find the true needs of the Filipinos in the countryside, as expressed in existing patterns of behavior. 'CeCs, with the help of ICT, must address present needs, not create new needs,' said Romero.
For instance, Romero cited CeCs as a venue for communities to post and hunt for job openings. 'Through ICT, CeCs should be tools for helping Filipinos reach for what they are reaching for, but which are beyond their grasp.'
To further get to the core of the poverty problem in the country, CeCs could help provide a faster way of improving living conditions by serving as a venue for communities to try to find jobs abroad. Romero calls it the 'santong paspasan orientation.'
For the slower approach, which Romero dubs the 'santong dasalan orientation,' CeCs could provide a venue for communities to study and learn in an inexpensive way. Romero believes that if people are really determined to improve their lives, every possible way to achieve it would be endeavored -- that includes learning on their own.
The CeC project aims to provide Internet connectivity in all cities and capitals by 2005; the first, second, and third municipalities by 2007; and all 1,501 municipalities by 2010. Currently, around 45 CeCs have been established nationwide.