Broadband Access ala Finland

Finland just made broadband access a legal right yesterday. The Philippines could have made this, too, had the vision of the NBN-ZTE project pushed thru. It could have been a smooth passage of bills without the bureaucracy and corruption. However, it did not.

Upon closer view, I think the Philippines is not yet ready for this kind of right. It lacks the infrastructure to support it. It also needs to supplement the primary academic curriculum to be able to utilize and maximize the exercise of such right.

The thrust for the right to broadband access in Finland is to better facilitate its daily transactions on the entertainment. This presumes that a big part of the population is at least familiar with internet transactions and to some extent, users of it. This is not the case of the Philippines.

While most part of the country has internet access, a lesser portion only is utilizing it for commercial transactions due to the misgivings earlier mentioned. This being the case, creating a legal right is not yet timely and practical. A lot of preliminary matters have to be addressed first before engaging in a project which is expensive and the return on investment of which is low.

When I first encountered the NBN-ZTE project, I thought it was a white elephant. That thought still has not changed. If the Philippines is going to have broadband access ala Finland, a lot of groundwork has to be done first. That would entail a number of years. Hence, for now, rather than harboring a white elephant, I suggest that the Philippines feed its carabaos first.

-Michelle P. M. Sabitsana