Less than two weeks prior to the celebration of Philippine Blockchain Week (PBW), the event’s lead convenor, Dr. Donald Lim, announced that a prestigious council has already been formed to help promote blockchain technology in the country.
The announcement was made during a press conference aimed at giving attendees a glimpse of PBW, a week-long blockchain event taking place from November 28 to December 4 at Newport World Resorts in Manila.
According to Dr. Lim, the council will advocate for blockchain education in the country and will assist in closing the knowledge gap as Filipinos transition from Web2 to Web3.
“The council will actively pursue private sector and government cooperation to achieve the goal of making the Philippines the blockchain capital of Asia,” he said in a statement.
Called the “Blockchain Council of the Philippines,” the council is made up of leaders from the industries of finance, marketing, and technology, and will be headed by Lito Villanueva, RCBC executive vice president and current chairman of FinTech Alliance.
Making up the rest of the council were Ida Tiongson, chairperson and independent director of PruLife UK and a trustee of Fintech Alliance; Mark Gorriceta, a tech lawyer and managing partner and head of the technology media and telecommunications group of Gorriceta, Africa, Cauton, and Saavedra Law; Martha Sazon, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of GCash; Henry Aguda, chairman of the board of UBX; Chezka Gonzales, founder of Woman of Substance NFT; Sheree Gotuaco, CEO of Scarletbox.io; Brian Poe Llamanzares, founder of Artifact; Kate Hancock, founder of Metaverse XYZ; Oscar Tan-Abing, Jr., CEO of Anotoys Collectiverse; Gail Macapagal, country director of Dynaquest; Emmanuel Samson, founder and CEO of Impero Group; Paul Soliman, chairman and CEO of Bayanichain; Emman Navalan, CEO of Tetrix; and Dr. Donald Lim, COO of DITO CME.
Blockchain technology is more than just cryptocurrency
According to Villanueva, the objective of PBW is to help every Filipino understand what blockchain is all about. He added that the country is fortunate to have had the most progressive and dynamic regulators.
“We thank the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for having an open mind in so far as welcoming innovations,” he said while emphasizing that the end goal of PBW is to provide Filipinos and the global community with an inclusive financial framework.
Mark Gorriceta, for his part, said that PBW will show the different uses of blockchain and address the negative news it has been receiving lately.
“Blockchain is the underlying technology of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the like. Basically, blockchain promotes decentralized finance. The purpose of PBW is to showcase the features of blockchain beyond Bitcoin and how the Blockchain Council of the Philippines will be able to promote, let’s say, how we can use this technology and how we can further enhance the Philippine economic agenda of our Central Bank,” he said.
Ida Tiongson noted that while most people would often associate blockchain with cryptocurrency, the technology can actually provide more to support industries and protect the integrity of data online.
“Blockchain is a technology,” she emphasized, “and it can be used in many different ways. You can also use it as a digital asset offering that is similar to NFTs, supply chains, payment systems, medical tracing, and gaming.
Daniel Robbins, the CEO of California-based IBH Media and co-founder of Metaverse Collective, seconded Tiongson’s claim even as he called blockchain “the number one global impact on our economy that we’ve ever seen in our lifetime.”
“It is great to understand the technology, but the next thing is (to learn) how you can implement that,” he said.