The administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. is building the country’s cybercrime specialists’ pool for the global market for cybersecurity experts, according to Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan Uy.
Uy mentioned in a briefing on Tuesday, Dec. 20, that there are two million cybersecurity job openings globally that the Philippines can fill.
“If we can supply, even just one-fourth of that, 500,000, I think that’s a very, very ambitious number. But, I think we need to build up the interest and we need to develop the necessary talent,” Uy said.
“So, iyan ho ang pinagkakaabalahan natin, is building up. Kasi hindi lang po ito abroad, itong mga BPOs (business process outsourcing) natin, djito sa Pilipinas and mga financial institutions natin, mga bangko, mga business sector, they are all are looking for that,” he added.
Uy said the DICT has subsidized education to help those seeking certification in the industry, as he noted the challenges on the certification and education of Filipino cybersecurity experts.
“So, iyan ang mga short programs, but we will be able to bridge that gap, because napakagaling po natin, ngunit ang kulang lang is building up on those credentials,” he continued.
He also noted that there are only around 200 Certified Information Systems Security Professionals in the Philippines, compared with other countries such as Singapore that has 3,000 cybersecurity experts.
“Napakaliit na bansa ang Singapore, bakit ganoon ang numbers nila? Dito sa atin, 200 something lang and only 30% of them are in-country. The 70% are actually working abroad,” Uy said.
“So we need to build up that competency. Kaya iyon ang programs na nilo-launch namin sa DICT to aggressively provide the technical know-how,” he added. KC–ag
