The Philippines’ Republic Act No. 8792 or the E-Commerce Act of 2000 (ECA for brevity) aims to facilitate domestic and international dealings, transactions, arrangements, agreements, contracts, and exchanges and storage of information. This objective can be accomplished through the use of electronic, optical, and similar technologies and by recognizing the authenticity and reliability of electronic documents. 

Close to a quarter of a century after the law’s passage, there remains an ocean of potential for electronic signatures usage in the Philippines. While the Covid-19 pandemic forced both the public and private sector to work from home and meet online,  transactions are still largely done via wet-signatures on paper. 

But this too, is quickly changing. The private sector has been using electronic signatures, both for domestic and international transactions. Government agencies are catching up and have started to adopt and promote the use of these signatures by the public.