The Department of Information and Communications Technology enters the back half of 2026 pulling in two directions at once: building out the infrastructure for a more connected Philippines while trying to force accountability from the platforms Filipinos already spend hours a day on.

President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. signs Executive Order No. 119, establishing a modernized data classification and residency framework aimed at strengthening the Philippines' digital infrastructure and data sovereignty.

On the infrastructure side, the department's biggest recent win is Executive Order 119, signed by President Marcos in July. It modernizes a data classification system that had gone unchanged since 1964, setting clear rules on which government data must stay on Philippine soil and which can move to the cloud under safeguards. Telcos have embraced it as a business opportunity — Converge and PLDT have both pitched their data centers as "sovereign cloud" options for agencies now required to localize sensitive information — while DICT frames it as a prerequisite for luring serious digital infrastructure investment into the country.

The harder fight is over social media. Secretary Henry Aguda has spent much of 2026 in a public standoff with Meta, Google, and Telegram, at one point warning Mark Zuckerberg directly that Facebook could be suspended in the Philippines over unresolved scams, deepfakes, and disinformation. DICT is now racing to pass a consolidated law that would force platforms to open local offices, hire Filipino moderators, enforce a minimum user age, and answer directly to government — a deadline the department has publicly set for this quarter. Congress isn't convinced it's moving fast enough, having briefly stalled the department's own budget over the issue, and some lawmakers are openly discussing a Facebook ban as leverage. Editorial voices have cautioned against that route, arguing the real target should be harmful content and bad actors, not the platforms tens of millions of Filipinos rely on for work, school, and staying in touch.

Officials and local residents at the launch event for DICT's Free Wi-Fi for All program, extending coverage to six tourist destinations in Puerto Galera and Calapan City, Oriental Mindoro.

Underneath both storylines, the department's day-to-day work continues: extending free Wi-Fi and cybersecurity training into remote towns, wiring Mindanao into the national fiber backbone, and pushing a budget request that's nearly doubled since 2023 — evidence that, argument or not, DICT is trying to scale up fast.