D I C T | R A 1 0 8 4 4

D I C T | R A  1 0 8 4 4

            I asked my dad: How did you and mom meet and know each other? So he told me everything about the day he first set eyes on my mom. Back in 1989, my dad worked as a family driver in Qatar it was coincidental that mom happened to be working for the same person as dad – mom was a beautician though. He even told me how he courted mom and how men today woo women. When he was courting mom, he always sent her hand-written love letters, every day unlike men nowadays, he added: They do not even know how to write one, they just sit and press keys on their phones then send short messages - they court women through text messages. During their time, he told me that he was also sending mom voice messages, not the voice messages we know today that we tend to record using our cellphones, recorded in cassette tapes. So I ask mom about my daddy’s cheesy stories and she confirmed that it was true – I hate my mom’s smirk when I ask about it. I felt guilty about how dad criticized men today because I, myself used to practice courting a girl thru text.

            I cannot imagine how my mom and dad survived their time without any cellular phones on their hands, or just internet. I cannot see how dad or mom was being so patient waiting for each other’s reply on their letters. What we had in the past is unimaginable.

            Nowadays, in just a click and few presses I am able to communicate with someone – love ones, parents and friends; relatives, sibling and cousins; and strangers, cyber-friends. In addition, buying my necessities is no longer a hassle today. If I am hungry, I will just turn on my laptop or my phone and go to different fast-food websites that take online orders and order my meal of the day! If I do not feel like going out for a shopping, very fortunate of me because I already have these online shops available wherein I can buy garments for my OOTD! Need to go to school? I do not worry anymore, because there are a lot of universities out there offering online courses! With the aid of technology I can always enjoy my life – hassle free!

            Now, let me take you back when was the time technology took place, specifically the Information and Communications Technology also known as ICT.

Information technology has been around for a long, long time. Basically as long as people have been around, information technology has been around because there were always ways of communicating through technology available at that point in time. There are 4 main ages that divide up the history of information technology. Only the latest age (electronic) and some of the electromechanical age really affects us today, but it is important to learn about how we got to the point we are at with technology today.

The premechanical age is the earliest age of information technology. It can be defined as the time between 3000B.C. and 1450A.D. We are talking about a long time ago. When humans first started communicating they would try to use language or simple picture drawings known as petroglyths which were usually carved in rock. Early alphabets were developed such as the Phoenician alphabet.

As alphabets became more popular and more people were writing information down, pens and paper began to be developed. It started off as just marks in wet clay, but later paper was created out of papyrus plant. The most popular kind of paper made was probably by the Chinese who made paper from rags.

Now that people were writing a lot of information down they needed ways to keep it all in permanent storage. This is where the first books and libraries are developed. You’ve probably heard of Egyptian scrolls which were popular ways of writing down information to save. Some groups of people were actually binding paper together into a book-like form.

Also during this period were the first numbering systems. Around 100A.D. was when the first 1-9 system was created by people from India. However, it wasn’t until 875A.D. (775 years later) that the number 0 was invented. And yes now that numbers were created, people wanted stuff to do with them so they created calculators. A calculator was the very first sign of an information processor. The popular model of that time was the abacus.

            So the Premechanical Age was basically the time when man began communicating and invented different ways on how they could convey their message and understood by someone they were talking to. This was the point in time when people started carving pictographs or symbols that represented words. They first made use of clay, then there went technological advancement and papers were invented. As soon as paper was already widely used, people commence making scrolls and used this to save data or information and compile inside a room archive – known today as library. Moreover, during this time, numbers were invented as well and people thought of: I need to do stuff with these, so they invented the calculator. The invention of this device paved the way for the creation of the very first Information Processor.

The mechanical age is when we first start to see connections between our current technology and its ancestors. The mechanical age can be defined as the time between 1450 and 1840. A lot of new technologies are developed in this era as there is a large explosion in interest with this area. Technologies like the slide rule (an analog computer used for multiplying and dividing) were invented. Blaise Pascal invented the Pascaline which was a very popular mechanical computer. Charles Babbage developed the difference engine which tabulated polynomial equations using the method of finite differences.

There were lots of different machines created during this era and while we have not yet gotten to a machine that can do more than one type of calculation in one, like our modern-day calculators, we are still learning about how all of our all-in-one machines started. Also, if you look at the size of the machines invented in this time compared to the power behind them it seems (to us) absolutely ridiculous to understand why anybody would want to use them, but to the people living in that time ALL of these inventions were HUGE.

Now we are finally getting close to some technologies that resemble our modern-day technology. The electromechanical age can be defined as the time between 1840 and 1940. These are the beginnings of telecommunication. The telegraph was created in the early 1800s. Morse code was created by Samuel Morse in 1835. The telephone (one of the most popular forms of communication ever) was created by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. The first radio developed by Guglielmo Marconi in 1894. All of these were extremely crucial emerging technologies that led to big advances in the information technology field.

The first large-scale automatic digital computer in the United States was the Mark 1 created by Harvard University around 1940. This computer was 8ft high, 50ft long, 2ft wide, and weighed 5 tons - HUGE. It was programmed using punch cards. How does your PC match up to this hunk of metal? It was from huge machines like this that people began to look at downsizing all the parts to first make them usable by businesses and eventually in your own home.

The electronic age is what we currently live in. It can be defined as the time between 1940 and right now. The ENIAC was the first high-speed, digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems. This computer was designed to be used by the U.S. Army for artillery firing tables. This machine was even bigger than the Mark 1 taking up 680 square feet and weighing 30 tons - HUGE. It mainly used vacuum tubes to do its calculations.

There are 4 main sections of digital computing. The first was the era of vacuum tubes and punch cards like the ENIAC and Mark 1. Rotating magnetic drums were used for internal storage. The second generation replaced vacuum tubes with transistors, punch cards were replaced with magnetic tape, and rotating magnetic drums were replaced by magnetic cores for internal storage. Also during this time high-level programming languages were created such as FORTRAN and COBOL. The third generation replaced transistors with integrated circuits, magnetic tape was used throughout all computers, and magnetic core turned into metal oxide semiconductors. An actual operating system showed up around this time along with the advanced programming language BASIC. The fourth and latest generation brought in CPUs (central processing units) which contained memory, logic, and control circuits all on a single chip. The personal computer was developed (Apple II). The graphical user interface (GUI) was developed.

            To sum it up, the start of ICT can be traced back down the day when man started to think of ways how to communicate to the time when supercomputers were invented, alongside with the invention of telecommunications.

            In the Philippines, by the year 1928 American-owned PLDT was established. This was the time believed that the ICT started here. During 1994 ComNet established the first internet connection and later, year 2000, PLDT has introduced the DSL. And by the year 2014:

·         Philippines named fastest growing internet population in the last five years with a growth of 531%

·         Number of Philippine Internet users at 38 million out of a population of 100 million.

Since the Philippines is no excuse for the rapid innovation brought about by the technological advancement, our government is giving its all to cope up with these changes. Thus, this paved the way for the drafting of RA 10844 or known as the creation the Department of Information and Communications Technology that believed to help nation-building with the aid of Information and Communication. This has been signed already by the previous president of the Philippines Benigno S. Aquino III. The following are excerpt from the said law that I personally have doubt about it and or strongly agree with:

Under Section 2 – Declaration of Policy

(d) To promote the development and widespread use of emerging ICT and foster and accelerate the convergence of ICT and ICT-enabled facilities;

(e) To ensure the availability and accessibility of ICT services in areas not adequately served by the private sector

            I cannot deny the fact that I find it very annoying to line up along with others outside the booths of any government offices. You cannot see someone smiling while lining themselves up along long line of people waiting for their names to be called. This is business-as-usual in every governmental offices not to mention the infamous NBI and LTO offices. With the aid of ICT, people would no longer pile up outside these offices just to fill up forms. Instead, they could already access it at home or any establishments that has internet connection and fill the form up. Cutting their hassles and giving them more time to take on their other business that day.

(h) To promote the use of ICT for the enhancement of key public services, such as education, public health and safety, revenue generation, and socio-civic purposes;

(i) To encourage the use of ICT for the development and promotion of the country’s arts and culture, tourism and national identity;

(j) To promote digital literacy, ICT expertise, and knowledge-building among citizens to enable them to participate and compete in an evolving ICT age:

(k) To empower, through the use of ICT, the disadvantaged segments of the population, including the elderly, persons with disabilities and indigenous and minority groups;

            I agree to the thinking of by the use ICT it could help enhance the public services offered by the government. For public health and safety. Nowadays, more and more people spend more of their time in social media than on TV, radio or newspapers; it is wise to use ICT – through Facebook, twitter, or the likes – to inform these individuals. Info-messages, podcasts, health/safety campaign clips, etc. are just few of the media people today prefer over the traditional ones. Promotion of the country’s arts, culture and tourism can be easily showcased through the use of ICT.

l) To ensure the rights of individuals to privacy and confidentiality of their personal information;

(m) To ensure the security of critical ICT infrastructures including information assets of the government, individuals and businesses; and

(n) To provide oversight over agencies governing and regulating the ICT sector and ensure consumer protection and welfare, data privacy and security, foster competition and the growth of the ICT sector.

The aforementioned declarations are some of the things drafted in this law that I intensely doubt! Questions, why there are still cases of government offices that have been cyber-attacked lately? Why still there are people whose personal information, like SSS number, PhilHealth number, or PRC License number, are illegally used by someone? I am not very confident about this declaration. How could, in any means, the government can keep this criminal at bay? People are getting smarter and wiser every day, and so do the crooks.

If I were the president Pnoy, I will ask the senate or the minorities to revisit some of the declarations written in this law before signing it. Although, the purposes of each declarations are pleasant to the ears but were not well-explained. There are still holes especially on how will the government make sure they could keep the criminals from hacking through their systems? For a fact we know, even the America, the most powerful nation, is also vulnerable to cyber-attacks. How could the Philippines protect itself from these future mayhems?

There are number of reasons why I am in favor of this law, yet I have thousands more of ins-and-outs as well to disagree that this law should be implemented.