The Japan International Cooperation Agency and Department of Information and Communications Technology teamed up to improve cybersecurity in the Philippines.

Both agencies signed up this week the workplan for cybersecurity experts dispatched by Jica to the Philippines for a two-year project on that boosts the capacity of DICT and other government organizations to allow exchange of knowledge and experiences particularly on incident handling and monitoring, and sectoral coordination, among others.

The technical cooperation is very timely and imperative, and aligned with "National Cybersecurity Plan 2024-2028," which sets the direction of the Philippine government in responding to cyber threats and network intrusions.

This partnership is crucial in this age of digitization as it will help enhance security of the Philippines' critical information structures.

Based on recent statistics, the Philippines is the fourth most-attacked country in the world, with over 50 million Web threat attempts in 2021.

Also, the Philippines ranked 61st out of 194 countries worldwide (13th out of 38 countries in Asia Pacific) in the 2020 Global Cybersecurity Index, placing below major Asean countries.

There is still an obvious need to beef up the country's cybersecurity position to enhance the protection of government agencies, critical information infrastructures, businesses and supply chains, and every Filipino in cyberspace.

"We aim to assist the Philippines in achieving trusted, secure and reliable cyberspace for every Filipino in the digital age. Through this cooperation, Japanese experts will help develop modules and support activities that will complement the NCSP," said Jica chief representative Sakamoto Takema.

"This is also an opportunity to help build convergence of different stakeholders in the Philippines and come up with measures to make digital systems trusted, secure and reliable."

Thanks to Japan's continued efforts and coordination among all stakeholders, it was announced that there were no major incidents that interfered with Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2021 although there were as many as 450 million suspicious accesses.

For example, in Japan, the National Cyber Training Center was established in 2017 to promote the development of cybersecurity resilience.