DATE: November 18, 2002

PUBLICATION: Malaya

TITLE: Computer Literacy

AUTHOR: Ducky Paredes

According to TESDA (Technical Education and Skills Development Authority) Directory General Dante Liban, there are a little over one million computers (not even 1.5 million) in the entire Philippines and this is one reason we are not doing as well as we should as an IT (information technology) destination or source.

If this is the case, this is all the more reason to go for the Botong Pinoy proposal for our elections. Under the scheme suggested by Raffy Garcia and Joey Leviste of Botong Pinoy, the computers that will be us4ed are ordinary PCs which would be leased and would not have to be bought by the Comelec. The investment of the Comelec would be on the software and not so much on the hardware. This would assure the Comelec of the working computers each time we have an election.

An enterprising businessman could bring in one computer per precinct, (There are 246,104 precincts) which could be re-sold to the public after the elections at bargain prices. After three elections, we would have almost doubled the number of computers in the country.

That businessman will make money from the contract to lease computers to the Comelec and from the sale of the computers to schools, Internet cafes, small businesses and private individuals. It would even be reasonable to set up a computer manufacturing facility in the country primarily to service the computer leasing needs of the Comelec. An extra 200,000 computers sold every three years is not a bad little niche in any industry and in any language. That’s over P3 billion every three years of a billion-peso-a-year business!