RONALDO B. ZAMORA

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, distinguished colleagues, it is a telling fact of our lives that what we are doing now in our sessions is being live-streamed on Facebook, our words tweeted on Twitter, and our images posted on Instagram.

In minutes, and well into the day, the nation’s 80 million social media users will come to learn at firsthand about the Commission on Appointments’ performance of its constitutional duties that we are now performing.

This system by which this information is transmitted is the domain of the appointee before us.  Internet is now the third most important utility after water and power, and its enjoyment is a human right as basic as loving, living and voting.

It has come to the point that, in this age, loving and living can only be relished with the aid of bytes and bandwidths.  And our national consumption of the two tells us how they have taken over most of our lives.

An average Filipino, mentioning the same statistics as Senator Joel, spends 10 hours and 2 minutes a day on the internet on different devices.  Contrast that, Mr. Chairman, with the amount of time that we spent on brushing teeth, 1 year and 6 months; commuting, 7 years and 9 months; eating, 9 years and 4 months; sleeping, 25 years, do the math and you’re talking about many, many decades spent in You Tube, Twitter, Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, Yahoo, and a host of other apps.

But this technology does not only allow us to become connected with each other, it has the power to do so much more, much greater good, one that can create jobs, grow the economy, teach our young and heal our sick, feed our people and all the things that make life better for us and brighter for the future of our children.  And this is where the importance of the role of our appointee comes in. His mission, Mr. Chairman, is to launch another revolution and win it.  More than 30 years ago, he had to wage one and he succeeded.  For the sake of the generations which would come after us he needs to win again.  And I’m speaking particularly of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the components of which include the internet of things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, big data analytics, all of which will define the way Filipinos live and work in the future.  The seeds of that revolution are being sown today; algorithms, the gig economy, Wifi, connectivity, 5G networks, 3-D printing.  Mr. Chairman, all of these include hardware and systems crucial to their delivery, like a third Telco, faster internet speed, open access, cyber security and all of these must be installed and institutionalized by the department that our appointee will head.

Mr. Chairman, winning the Fourth Industrial Revolution requires cathedral thinking.  As has been said, we may not know how to build the ceilings of the cathedral today, but should not prevent us from laying the foundations of this cathedral. 

On this, Mr. Chairman, I have confidence in the ability of Gregorio B. Honasan II of  Sorsogon, Baguio and Marikina City, senator and a soldier, an authentic hero of our nation, who will strengthen our nation’s ICT foundations and lay those building blocks.

Mr. Chairman, it is my personal honor to second his confirmation as Secretary.

Thank you.