Speaker Martin Romualdez said on Monday he expects the country’s internet speed to go up a notch next year once the Department of

Information and Communications Technology (DICT) implements its National Broadband Plan (NBP) that has been allocated P1.5 billion in

the proposed 2023 national budget. Romualdez said the P1.5 billion allocation to the NBP is part of the P77 billion institutional amendments made by the lower chamber to augment the budget for education, health, transportation, and other critical social services.

“And the internet is a critical social service nowadays, as it is deeply entrenched in the way we live. We use the internet for education, for delivering and availing social services, for our businesses, and for almost every facet of our lives,” Romualdez said.

Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Zaldy Co, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, said the P1.5 billion that was allocated for the NBP will go a long way in jumpstarting the program that is envisioned to provide the backbone in providing internet to all government agencies nationwide.

“At alam naman natin na maraming lugar pa rin sa ating bansa ang hindi naaabot ng internet connection, lalo na ‘yung malalayong lugar. And we can now use the bandwidth given by Facebook once the DICT conducts the rollout of national broadband infrastructure, which will now be finally funded,” Co said.

He was talking about the earlier agreement forged by DICT, Facebook, and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) in which Facebook agreed to provide the Philippine government with spectrum equivalent to at least two million megabits per second (Mbps) once the internet infrastructure has been established.