The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), through its latest Digital Government Index (DGI,) has found that the Philippines continues to trail its Southeast Asian peers in digital government readiness after scoring an embarrassing 0.28 out of 1, ranking the country the third lowest among the eight countries in the region that the study covered.
The OECD’s DGI draws on data from Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, collected between September 2024 and February 2025.
The Philippines’ score of 0.28 is way below the regional average of 0.37, which is in turn below the OECD member-country average of 0.61.
The index benchmarks how governments integrate digital technologies and data into policymaking and public service delivery across six dimensions. These are digital by design, data-driven public sector, government as a platform, open by default, user-driven services, and proactiveness.
The Philippines recorded a low score of 0.36 in “digital by design,” placing it third lowest among its regional peers. That suggests that while digital initiatives exist, they are not yet consistently built into the core design of government operations.
“Setting a strategic vision and clear mandate for digital government is a prerequisite to steer digital government initiatives, and for facilitating more effective and inclusive cross-sector collaboration,” the OECD said.
The country also ranked fourth-highest in proactiveness, with a score of 0.26. The OECD said this could be further improved through the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), an area where Southeast Asia as a whole continues to lag.
“The adoption of AI can help governments become more proactive. Used strategically and responsibly, governments can leverage AI to enhance public sector productivity, responsiveness, and accountability,” the OECD said.
Although the Philippines is among the 3 countries in the region that have a national strategy or agenda that references the use of AI in the public sector, we have yet to deploy AI systems in government operations. We also do not have binding or non-binding instruments in place to guide the responsible use of algorithms in the public sector.
It is quite revealing that despite all the talk of ‘digitalization’ from local and national government officials, it would seem that it has not translated into tangible results that international organizations like the OECD can detect. Otherwise, the Philippines wouldn’t rank so low in its Digital Government Index.
When it comes to a digital government, it looks like we still have a lot catching up to do.*
