Digital governance

By Ike Señeres

THAILAND has established a Digital Government Development Agency (DGA). That agency was tasked with implementing the vision to transform the Thai economy into an innovation driven nation. The vision has four major objectives, namely (1) Creating a value-based economy driven by innovation, technology and creativity, (2) Building an inclusive society and reduce social disparity, (3) Developing the potential of human capital and (4) Ensuring environmental sustainability and develop the world’s most liveable cities in Thailand. Forgive me for being sentimental, but what kind of a government could come out with these profound expressions of wisdom? Conversely, what kind of government officials in the Philippines would think instead of a national broadband project that would steal public funds rather than work towards digital governance?

Speaking in a public forum, a highly successful Filipino scientist said that we do not have too many innovation initiatives simply because we are lacking in higher consciousness to do so. Perhaps he is very much correct, because it does take a higher consciousness to be able to think about a value based economy driven by innovation, technology and creativity. Putting that another way, I would say that that should mean creating new value added because of new patents. As I see it, the number of patents is the only measure of success in innovation, except perhaps for innovations that are protected by market shares instead of patents. To state the obvious, it is not enough to create new value added without owning the intellectual property rights (IPRs). Otherwise, an economy that has no ownership of IPRs would just rely on the trading of goods and the provision of services.

I have been hearing about countries wanting to build an inclusive society, but this is the first time I have heard about having the reduction of social disparity as an accompanying goal. Stating both goals in tandem would actually be duplication, because building an inclusive society would already actually mean the reduction of social disparity. In reality, the Philippines actually has the same goal of building an inclusive society, but it is not said in the context of digital transformation. Again, it seems that it is only Thailand that is doing this in this context so far. At the risk of sounding redundant, I would still say that that is very unique, to talk about social transformation in the context of digital transformation. For my part however, I have always said that the so-called digital divide is simply a reflection of the social divide.

In so many ways, it could be explained that social inclusion would necessarily mean poverty reduction, but perhaps not in the form of total poverty eradication. By logical inference, it should go without saying that the reduction of social disparity would necessarily mean poverty reduction also, but on the other hand, disparity could also be qualitative and not quantitative, if and when the former is interpreted in the context of having access to public services. Indeed, everything seems to boil down to access, in the same manner that having access to financial capital is synonymous with financial inclusion. Simply said, people are financially excluded from the mainstream of society if they do not have money. The cycle actually goes on, because if people do not have access to capital, they remain poor.

As much as financial capital is very important for business to prosper, nothing will happen if there is no labor to make the business run. That is why human capital is more important than financial capital. In saying so however, I do not just mean the muscle of blue collar workers, but I also mean the intellect of white collar workers. Well, I actually mean much more than that, because I really actually mean the higher form of human capital, perhaps the kind that is already in the level of the higher consciousness that is needed to create IPRs. In this context, I would again say that we really need to join the global patent race if we really want to create more value added than we are creating now. Obviously, if we can create more value added, our country can become richer and in doing so, poverty will become lesser too.

As if it is not surprising enough to hear Thailand talk about digital transformation in the context of social transformation, it is even more surprising that they have included environmental sustainability in their digital governance goals, and have even included the building of highly liveable cities as an accompanying goal. Where is this kind of higher consciousness coming from, and how do we bring that kind of thinking to the Philippines? I do understand that cities have to be green in order to be sustainable, but how many people really understand that in order for cities to be green, they also need to be smart? I do not know how they did it, but it is obvious that some bright minds in Thailand were able to figure out that in order for cities to be more liveable, cities have to become smart on top of being green. If that is what digital governance means, I will go for it anytime.

E-mail: iseneres@yahoo.com