Arroyo names new CICT chairman

By Erwin Oliva, Lira Dalangin-Fernandez = INQUIRER.net

Reposts to correct position offered to the outgoing head of the Commission on Higher Education.

CEBU CITY, Philippines -- President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has appointed Ray Anthony Roxas Chua as the new chairman of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology.

In an interview with reporters here, Arroyo said Chua was chosen because of his background in computer science.

“His appointment has been signed but not yet transmitted,” Arroyo candidly said when asked by INQUIRER.net about Chua's appointment.

Arroyo said Chua has worked in the US and has decided to come back to the Philippines to work for his family. She said the new chairman of CICT is the grandson of Anthony Roxas Chua.

A former government executive who declined to be identified said Chua is a graduate of Wharton, which Arroyo also mentioned in an informal interaction with reporters here. Chua has also worked for the IT department of Citibank in San Francisco.

CICT legal counsel Lorenzo Formoso said he did not know Chua personally, but welcomed the news because “CICT can now continue to do its work.”

Arroyo was in Cebu to inaugurate the new facility of Accenture and said that the company’s Cebu expansion is an example of the “higher value services” she mentioned in her State of the Nation Address.

“Cebu is now one of the centers identified in the Cyberservices corridor,” she said.

She also stressed that the outsourcing industry should gradually focus on higher-value services such as software development.

Arroyo said that Romulo Neri's appointment to the Commission on Higher Education would help the country's tertiary education, which will produce the graduates needed by various industries including the outsourcing industry.

“I thank Carlito Puno for what he has done with CHED,” Arroyo said, adding that the government executive is being offered the post of president of Cocochem