Free Market Philippines

In the Philippines, are free market forces, unfettered by government intervention or regulation, adequate for providing appropriate deployment of the national information infrastructure in support of health and health care?

According the Department of Finance of the Philippines, the Philippine Government is committed to a free market economy. There is, however, significant direct government involvement in the countrys economic activity through both economic planning and the state-ownership of numerous corporations involved in certain strategic sectors, such as banking, power-generation, oil production and transportation.

However throughout the years, we’ve seen and experienced how people from the business abused the free market economy of the Philippines, especially on basic needs like food.  The National Information Infrastructure both free market and the government is not adequate in supporting the need for health and health care. Even if the free market or private business can cater to the need, there is a need for standards and regulations on implementation.  It does not only protect the public but also the stakeholders who might pay too much.

The National Information infrastructure of the Philippines is an act to promote and to govern the development of the telecommunications in the Philippines.  The promises it gives, will pave way to better communication.  However, even if NIIP is in place, there are still areas around the Philippines that have no poor to no access to telecommunications, because lets face it – what’s in it for the telecommunication companies serving an area of so little population and the market for their services is not as big as areas with bigger population.

My take on this, is to have a public private partnership.  According to Department of Finance of the Philippines PPP is a key strategy of the Philippine development plan. With the end view of fostering an environment conducive for private sector entrepreneurial initiatives, the government has developed a policy environment that strongly supports private sector participation in its development activities.  Since the telecommunications in the Philippines are all private business, they hold the key on having ICT infrastructure in areas where there is still poor or no access to telecommunications in partnership with the government.  Through the NIIP, the regulations will protect masses, prevents abuse and provide security.

According to the WHO eHealth Strategy Toolkit, collaboration between the health and ICT sectors, both public and private, is central to this effort. The major United Nations agencies for health and telecommunications respectively, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have recognized the importance of collaboration for eHealth in their governing body resolutions, which encourage countries to develop national eHealth strategies.   . Experience shows that this requires strategic and integrated action at the national level, to make the best use of existing capacity while providing a solid foundation for investment and innovation. Establishing the main directions as well as planning the detailed steps that are needed is crucial to achieving longer-term goals such as universal access to care, health sector efficiency, reform or more fundamental transformation.

On the statement, NIIP and the National eHealth Strategy will stand to strategize, plan and protect the interest of the public and private sector for the use of ICT for health.