Ex-DICT Official Challenges Aguda Claim on ASEAN AI Ranking
A former senior official of the Department of Information and Communications Technology is asking his old department to show its work. Allan Cabanlong, a former DICT assistant secretary and the first executive director of the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center, has questioned Secretary Henry Aguda’s statement that the Philippines ranks first or second in Southeast Asia on AI policy, governance, skills and capability.
Aguda made the claim in a Bilyonaryo News Channel interview aired on Business 360, saying the country ranked close to Singapore on those measures but fell to sixth or seventh on infrastructure. In a Facebook post reported by Newsbytes.PH on October 4, Cabanlong asked which published study supports the ranking. He said recent work by Oxford Insights, the OECD and UNESCO does not appear to back it, and that the ASEAN IAI Work Plan V, citing Oxford Insights, places the Philippines behind Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Viet Nam in overall government AI readiness.
If DICT ran its own benchmark, Cabanlong said, it should publish the methodology, indicators, weights, reference year, country scores and underlying datasets so anyone can reproduce the result. “AI policy should be evidence-based,” he wrote. “If we claim a ranking, the data and methodology should be open to scrutiny.”
What it means in practice
The exchange matters because rankings move money. DICT is courting investors for its $34.4 billion AI+ infrastructure masterplan to 2033, and hyperscalers weighing Philippine sites compare countries on exactly these kinds of indices. An overstated position can backfire in due diligence, while an honest gap analysis shows where public spending should go first.
Aguda’s own framing already concedes the weak spot: infrastructure. That matches the message from economic planners, including the argument that the Philippines needs AI reskilling beside infrastructure upgrades. Where the two men differ is whether policy progress, such as the eGovAI rollout and AI literacy plans in schools, already puts the country near the top of the region.
Cabanlong was careful to credit real progress on AI policy. His argument is narrower: policy readiness, governance, AI skills, technological capability and infrastructure are different metrics, and combining them into one headline rank risks presenting an internal assessment as an established ASEAN ranking.
What to watch: whether DICT releases the underlying study, how the Philippines fares in the next Oxford Insights Government AI Readiness Index, and whether Congress asks for a common scorecard. A published, reproducible benchmark would serve investors, educators and lawmakers far better than a disputed soundbite.