About time. Original article from Inquirer.net: CICT explores use of digital signatures.

MANILA, Philippines–The Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) has secured a $2.3-million grant from South Korea to help establish a national public key infrastructure (PKI) standards body in the Philippines.

This PKI body will be responsible for issuing digital signatures (or digital certificates) for individual and business users transacting with government-run websites.

It’s nice to know that got some grant so that the government can do some action. Doc Mana has been ranting about creating an infrastructure a few months ago during press releases about the modernization of the national elections.

Even if we did not receive a grant, the Philippines can creatively setup an infrastructure. Given that PKI technology is not new and a lot of local companies are providing these service anyway, we can simply setup a national federation of Certification Authorities (CAs) in the Philippines issues these public keys.

Probably most of the funds of the grant will go into the pilot deployment on government organizations like the BIR (which volunteered). But hey, how about Comelec? You guys have a deadline right?