The Philippines at the forefront of digitalization: Vanessa Pastor-Ledesma

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“We’re at the helm of a quick turnaround of super development,” Vanessa Pastor-Ledesma told CoinGeek Backstage on the sidelines of the recently held Digital Pilipinas Festival 2023.

The Special Advisor of the ASEAN Trade Programs of Digital Pilipinas sees that the Philippines is not truly left behind when it comes to digital transformation. As the event’s panel discussion with the various ambassadors around the world concludes, every country has its advantages and disadvantages—with Pastor-Ledesma weighing the Southeast Asian stance and laying out its digitization efforts.

Similar to New Zealand, which is way ahead of advancing and digitalizing its government systems, the Philippines has also panned out its e-government system, she said.

“It actually blew me away today, moderating and listening to the different countries, the status of their digitalization landscape in their countries. It’s true what Amor Maclang is projecting that by 2030, not only ASEAN will be the leader of digitalization, [but] the Philippines will be at the forefront of that as a bridgeway to ASEAN digitalization,” Pastor-Ledesma said.

“I think with this move towards digitalization, our country is very open to everything. We love being on our mobiles. We love payment online. We hate lining up. We hate traffic. All those are pain points that everybody [in our government] is trying to address,” she added.

Pastor-Ledesma believes that the Philippines’ IT sector can easily adapt to changes, even with digital transformation.

How about being open to new emerging technologies? Pastor-Ledesma sees that the Southeast Asian country can easily cope with the fast transition of the world towards technologies like AI and blockchain. However, as she observed, many groups still fear these changes.

“There’s a hesitation there. There are certain groups that are afraid that [AI adoption] is going too fast… These things are emerging quite fast, actually…But at the same time, in the Philippines landscape, we still have a lot to go,” Pastor-Ledesma noted. “These take time, I believe. We’re not going to get it overnight, but I believe that attitude, the character of Filipinos in general, are just so welcoming and ready for it.”

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