Lining up for government transactions will be a "thing of the past" and face-to-face classes will resume only when the risk of infection is "eliminated," President Rodrigo Duterte said Monday in his State of the Nation Address, as he charted a digital way forward to halt infections.
The interior and budget departments should coordinate with the Anti Red-Tape Authority to "make full, possible services online," Duterte said. "We need to adjust and adapt to a paperless type of business. We need e-governance."
"Until the COVID vaccine is available, I will not allow the traditional face-to-face teaching, unless the risks to exposure are eliminated. I cannot and will not put to risk the lives and health of the students and teahcers," he said.
Duterte said he would enforce consumer and data protection and privacy laws to enable e-commerce. "We must run after online scammers, online transactions. We must continue to protect the Filipinos and remind the world that we are responsible stewards of data."
"I am committed to protect both the physical and digital lives of our law-abiding countrymen," he said.