SPECIAL EDSA
20TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE JAN-FEB 2006 TUNE IN TO 20 Featured Filipinos
Corazon C. Aquino Imelda Marcos Fidel V. Ramos Juan Ponce Enrile Gregorio ‘Gringo’ Honasan Jose Concepcion Jr. Rene A.V. Saguisag Bernabe ‘Kumander Dante’ Buscayno Nur Misuari Teresita Ang See Romeo J. Intengan Eugenia Apostol William Torres Carmen Deunida, a.k.a. Nanay Mameng Jim Paredes Luz Emmanuel Soriano Raymundo Jarque Jose Luis Martin ‘Chito’ Gascon Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebando Alfonso Tomas ‘Atom’ P. Araullo
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‘The electoral system must be changed’
That was on February 9, 1986, two days after the snap presidential election called by Marcos. Considered one of the early sparks of Edsa 1, the walkout served to further lend credence to allegations, acknowledged even by a multinational team of observers, that the electoral exercise was marred by widespread vote-buying, intimidation, ballot box-snatching, tampered election returns, and the disenfranchisement of millions of voters especially in opposition bailiwicks at the behest of Marcos's party, the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL). Dr. William Torres was at the PICC that day. He wasn't one of the technicians, but was one of the two consultants the Comelec contracted pro bono to help review the vote tabulation system designed by the National Computer Center (NCC). An information technology professional since the 1960s, he, too, had noticed that much of the processing of the election documents was no longer being done electronically, and that the returns had become deliberately slow in coming. "Somehow, somebody totaled and then brought it to a room where the head of the NCC was isolated from the rest," he recalls. "And you don't know what happened to these documents. But when these came out, these were now the numbers that got posted." Looking at it from a systems perspective, he became convinced that there was an irregularity in the process. He says the technicians had brought up the same issue with him. When they staged their walkout — which he says took him by surprise — he and his fellow consultant, Col. Fermin Javier, decided to follow their lead. Torres's and Javier's act, however, was never to be immortalized by a TV or still camera. Now the president of the country's first commercial Internet service provider, Mozcom, the 73-year-old Torres refuses to ascribe anything political to his decision that day. "It's just that I cannot be part of a fraud or an irregular process," he explains. "As a professional, you couldn't be part of that no matter what people think. Because some people would think it would become worse if you leave." It was, he stresses, "a matter of principle." Thirteen days later, Torres, along with his wife and a small contingent of IT colleagues, would join other Filipinos massing up along the stretch of Edsa in front of Camps Crame and Aguinaldo for what would become the first "people power" revolt.
But the new Cory administration had other ideas about mining Torres's IT talents. With his work at the DAP and such credentials as a Fullbright-Hays scholar, the first Filipino to be conferred a doctorate degree in computer science by the University of Wisconsin, and a professor of mathematics and management engineering at the Ateneo de Manila University, Torres was designated officer-in-charge of the NCC until July 1987, and eventually as its managing director until May 1993. His stint as NCC head ushered in great strides for the IT sector, then largely untapped as an enabler of economic development and social transformation. It was his idea that government agencies craft and adopt their own information systems plans to enable them to look a few years ahead at what they wanted to do. Today's Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) traces its roots to the Information Technology Coordinating Council (ITCC) created by the Cory government in 1987, and which Torres chaired for six years. Through the council, which later evolved into the National Information Technology Council (NITC) and then the Information Technology and Electronic Commerce Council (ITECC), Torres authored the first-ever draft of the National IT Plan (NITP). In October 1997, the action agenda was updated for the 21st century, called IT21, with the goal of transforming the Philippines into the knowledge center of Asia. Torres credits these pioneering endeavors largely to the much improved political environment that allowed the government and the private sector to work together. Under Marcos, the NCC was the sole entity responsible for directing IT use for national development. Under Aquino, there emerged a mechanism that ensured a government-private sector partnership in overseeing the development and deployment of information and communications technology in the different spheres. It was even represented by the aggressive acronym TIGER — telecommunications, industry, government, education and research — and its goal was to make the country globally competitive. Torres's other important (if not his greatest) contribution is helping lay down the foundations of the Internet infrastructure in the country, an accomplishment that has even earned him the unofficial title of "Father of the Philippine Internet." His informal negotiations with the U.S. National Science Foundation in 1992 initiated the campaign to bring the Net to the country, but it took him more than a year to finally realize his goal. The link to the Internet was set up via a local server ahead of schedule in early 1994, with ample help from other titans of the Philippine IT field — the late Dr. William Gan (Torres's co-founder at Mozcom), Dr. Rodolfo Villarica of the Internet Research Foundation, and Dr. William Padolina, who went on to become secretary of the Department of Science and Technology. In the last 20 years, the IT sector has become a vital engine of the Philippine economy. Telecommunications is leading the growth with SMS and mobile applications development. New trends in IT services like business process outsourcing, call centers, and medical transcription have joined software development and digital animation as billion-dollar revenue-earners as well as employers. When the history of IT in the Philippines is written up, Torres will certainly be recognized as one of the trailblazers. Today he is pleased that the country has reduced the gap between the availability of technology and its usage. But he says a lot still needs to be done in terms of how technology can be better used, particularly in improving our competitiveness, uplifting people's lives, and providing services to citizens. The government may have been equipped with technology to enhance its processes, but the change somehow has only had the effect of speeding things up. Torres thinks that the prevailing political and economic environment is making it hard to implement the "enabling" IT policies already in place. "(There are) too many cooks trying to do what they think they know," he says. "And we cannot seem to agree. And I think there's a lack of leadership. I'm not talking only about the president, perhaps the people around the president, maybe the leadership in the private sector who are all influenced by the situation in the country."
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