Former president Joseph Estrada signed Executive Order 264 on July 13 last year, merging the National Information Technology Council led by the Department of Science and Technology and the E-Commerce Promotion Council established by the Department of Trade Industry. The Department of Trade and Industry was appointed as the lead agency of the Council, with the Trade Secretary designated as chair and the Science Secretary and a private sector representative acting as co-chairs. It is neither the highest planning body. We don t want to be the highest policymaking body. He went on to citing that the National Telecommunications Commission is the body mandated to set policies for telecommunications, while the Department of Trade Industry has been appointed as the agency in charge of implementing the E-Commerce Law in the Philippines.
Information technology is a broad of a term.
It s clear what NCC is expected to do. In fact, we have enough to do. We currently keep ourselves busy. Incidentally, Ms Macapagal last week announced that she has called back Manual Roxas II to head the Trade agency and Filemon Uriarte Jr. to lead the Science department. The Council is scheduled to meet on the first week of February.