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This National Information Technology Plan (IT21) for the 21st Century, documents our common vision and presents our nation's broad strategy to spur our country to global competitiveness through information technology. It sets down specific time frames for achieving these goals:

By the turn of the 21st century, the Philippines will have laid the infrastruture for every business, every agency of government, every school, and every home in the Philippines to have access to information technology.

By the year 2005, IT use will be pervasive in daily life. Philippine companies will be producing competitive IT products for world markets.

Within the first decade of the 21st Century, the Philippines will be a Knowledge Center for Asia: a leader in IT education, in IT-assisted training, and in the application of information and knowledge to business, professional services, and the arts.

This document benefited from a study undertaken by a team of international and local experts organized by the National Information Technology Council (NITC) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), with funding assistance from United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the national government. Over a period of about six (6) months, the team consulted with industry leaders and various government officials to define the issues and recommend specific measures needed in meeting the goals that were set for the IT sector, taking current international experience and the state of IT into account.

The team's recommendations were summarized in a set of technical papers, which provided the major basis for this document. The draft of the IT21 document was reviewed and approved with some modifications and presented to the Legislative and Executive Development Council (LEDAC), and later during the same day last October 28, 1997, was again presented to and approved by a joint meeting of the Cabinet and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board chaired by the President.

Soon after, the President met with the heads of the leading global IT companies to forge strategic alliances in implementing specific projects identified in IT21. The President also issued on November 7, 1997 Administrative Order No. 332 on the RPWEB, which directs government agencies to connect to the Internet.

These events just emphasize the impetus being given to IT21 from the highest levels of public ofice in the land. Urgent tasks lie ahead for those who will follow.

• A number of policy issues in telecommunications and the establishment of the Philippine Information Infrastrucure have been resolved, but there are still pending issues that must be addressed in "technology-neutral"ways.
• We have started capitalizing on global opportunities for solutions to the "millenium bug" problem and other IT-related services, but we still lack the critical mass of trained manpower to take to take a sizable share in the world market.
• Government agencies have increased their use of the Internet, but regular uses of the Internet number only about one-tenth of one percent of the total Philippine population.
• Many Philippine educational institutions are just starting to experiment with the use of IT in education.
• We still need to gear up our science and technology community for R&D activities in the field of information technology.
• We still need to have IT21 internalized by all the relevant actors in the country.