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Good practice Imported

DICT Memorandum Circular 2017-004 — The Philippine Web Accessibility Policy

Philippines · Quezon City · See the Philippines profile · See the Quezon City profile

Evidence: Observational / pre–post Top 31% 84/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

The Philippines' DICT mandated WCAG 2.0 for all government websites in 2017; a 2025 peer-reviewed audit of national agencies found average accessibility compliance of only 53%, real but incomplete progress eight years on.

28.00-82.67 %
Web-accessibility compliance range (2025 audit) (2025)
53.43 %
Average web-accessibility compliance (2025 audit) (2025)
62.32-97.10 %
General-usability compliance range (2025 audit) (2025)
82.50 %
Average general-usability compliance (2025 audit) (2025)
DICT Memorandum Circular 2017-004 — The Philippine Web Accessibility Policy

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), with the National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA)
Period
2017–present
Keywords
web accessibility, WCAG 2.0, e-government, ICT policy, disability inclusion

Context

Signed 9 June 2017 by DICT Secretary Rodolfo Salalima, Memorandum Circular No. 2017-004 adopts ISO/IEC 40500:2012 (W3C's WCAG 2.0) as the Philippine Web Accessibility Policy, rooted in the 1992 Magna Carta for Persons with Disabilities.

Objectives

The circular binds national departments, Congress, the judiciary, state universities and colleges, government financial institutions, GOCCs and local government units, requiring accessible e-forms, alt-text, accessible PDFs, and captioning or sign-language interpretation, with a two-year transition period and a DICT/NCDA technical working group to monitor conformance.

Results

A 2025 peer-reviewed study (Bokingkito et al., MDPI Informatics) combining automated and manual testing across national agency websites found web-accessibility compliance ranging from 28.00% to 82.67% (average 53.43%), notably lower than general-usability compliance (62.32%-97.10%, average 82.50%). Better-performing agencies included the Department of Trade and Industry, the Commission on Higher Education, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor and Employment, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Conclusions

Accessibility specifically lags behind general usability eight years after the mandate took effect. A commonly cited 2018 baseline of 0% WCAG compliance could not be traced to a primary report and should be treated as weakly sourced.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Long (> 3 years) — Signed 9 June 2017; two-year transition period; 2025 independent audit shows partial, uneven progress.
Staffing & skills
Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA) technical working group

Conditions for success

  • Statutory mandate binding all levels of national government, not a voluntary guideline
  • Two-year transition period before enforcement
  • Standing DICT/NCDA technical working group to monitor conformance

Common failure modes

  • Average compliance only 53.43% eight years after the mandate, per the 2025 independent audit
  • Accessibility compliance measurably lags general-usability compliance across the same agencies
  • A commonly cited 2018 compliance baseline could not be traced to a primary source

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