MANILA, Philippines—The official start of the election season begins in two months and aspiring candidates in Congress are expected to focus on their campaigns that could disrupt their legislative work.

Still, the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) is pushing ahead to make lawmakers sign a proposal that will turn the agency into a full national-level department.

In a phone interview, CICT chairman Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua said the interpolation for House Bill 4300 or the DICT Bill has been reset to November 9 when Congress resumes session.

Its counterpart legislation in the upper chamber, Senate Bill 2546, is awaiting second reading.

“We hope this bill will be signed by December,” Roxas-Chua said, adding the CICT will ask President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to certify the DICT as a priority bill.

Meanwhile, Roxas-Chua said the Cybercrime Bill will take longer before it gets the nod of both chambers of Congress, citing the discrepancies their versions.

Still, Roxas-Chua was expecting that the creation of the DICT would fast track other information and communications technology-related proposals, including a data privacy bill.

The DICT and the Cybercrime bills have gone back and forth at the Senate and the House of Representatives for years, since the establishment of the CICT in January 2004, although discussions about creating such laws started right after the establishment of the country’s first ICT law, the E-Commerce Act (Republic Act 8792) in 2000.