President Marcos highlighted this week the need for the government and private companies to effectively collaborate in navigating and averting persistent cybersecurity problems, which he described as “the darker side of technology.”
The Chief Executive issued this statement during his conversation with Google Philippines country manager Jackie Wang at the World Economic Forum (WEF) country roundtable hosted by Malacañang last Tuesday.
“We have many instances where there are scams, there is hacking. We, in terms of actual security, we also have been–have fallen victims to great many of these nefarious activities. And so, yes, those were the areas that we worry about,” he said.
Google Philippines meanwhile lauded the “amazing growth” of the Philippine economy under the Marcos administration.
“Our reports reflect a lot of what you mentioned about the growth potential and the amazing growth that we’ve seen in the Philippines,” Wang said.
President Marcos stressed the importance of solving these issues, so the Philippines can sustain its economic growth, which has been boosted by an active digital economy.
According to Wang, the Philippines’ digital economy has reached $23-billion (roughly P1.3-trillion) since 2023 in terms of its growth merchandising value and has a compound “giga growth” of 16 percent.
In line with this, President Marcos encouraged the private sector to help the government in improving the country’s internet connectivity and fortifying critical infrastructures against cyber-attacks.
“Well, we are still at the level where we are worried about connectivity and we are working very hard because being an island nation that becomes a real factor, that becomes a real challenge,” he said.
Citing state-commissioned surveys, President Marcos revealed that 95 percent of Filipinos have been using the internet to conduct businesses, and only five percent of them are relying on it for government services.
“In terms of payment, for example, clearances and all that, 95 percent of the activity is over the internet. The last five percent was the government and that’s why we still are falling behind,” he pointed out.