DICT seeks Congress' help to tap P8 billion SUF for digital infra programs

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is calling on lawmakers to help the agency tap the spectrum users fees (SUF) to fund its digital infrastructure programs.

During the House Committee on Appropriations’ deliberations on the agency’s proposed P9.067 billion budget for 2022, DICT Undersecretary Emmanuel Caintic said, “Our only request is to unleash the P8 billion SUF because with that we can do a lot of things in terms of connectivity.”

Spectrum users fees or SUF, are collected annually from mobile network service providers that were assigned frequency bandwidth based on the amount of spectrum used, type of service being offered, and economic classification of the areas covered by cell sites.

“Our primary flagship programs are the National Broadband and Free Wi-Fi [for All]. We are now fusing them together as a digital infrastructure plan,” Caintic explained.

“That is why, we need Congress’ help to unleash the SUF.”

The DICT official said that the use of the SUF for the free public internet access program is classified as maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE).

“I want to point out MOOE ‘yan, para akong nagbabayad ng internet service sa 10,000 sites,” Caintic said.

(I want to point out that it's MOOE, it’s like I’m paying for internet service on 10,000 sites.)

He said the DICT needed the whole SUF fund to be unlocked “so we can use it for capital outlay to build the infrastructure.”

MOOE refers to an expenditure category for support of the operations of government agencies while capital outlay is expenditures for the acquisition cost of capital assets, such as equipment and infrastructure.

Caintic explained that the DICT needs to put up digital infrastructure to maximize the cheaper internet it will buy from the US to serve the connectivity needs of more than 10,000 free Wi-Fi sites.

“The internet we will buy from the US is at about 9 cents per Mbps, that’s how cheap it is. But we do not have the means to let it flow to 10,000 cites,” he said.

“Unleash the SUF for us to build an infrastructure,” he added.

E-health systems

Apart from unlocking the SUF fund, the DICT is also appealing to lawmakers to increase the P112 million 2022 funding for the creation of a vaccine information system and other COVID-related systems, “which will serve as the preliminary e-health systems for the country.”

“We wish consideration from Congress to increase this to at least sustain the gains of COVID-19 response and information systems,” Caintic said.

“We managed to jumpstart the creation of a national immunization registry,” he said.

The DICT originally proposed a budget of P34.63 billion for next year, but the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) only approved a budget of P9.067 billion amid issues on the agency’s low utilization of funds.

Caintic said the DICT is one with the national government in understanding the limited fiscal space.

DICT Secretary Gregorio Honasan II said the agency defers to the wisdom of Congress concerning the DICT’s budget for 2022. — DVM, GMA News