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2024-2025 Government Budget: Strategic Investment in Cyber Security Aligned with the Philippine Skills Framework

Gilbert Cadiang21 Aug 2024Learning NewsLumify Group

The Philippine government has unveiled its 2024-2025 budget, which has a significant focus on enhancing the country’s cyber security infrastructure. The strategic investment aligns with the recently developed Philippine Skills Framework.

Cyberattacks today are not just becoming more dangerous they are also occurring more frequently. In fact, did you know the Philippines experienced more than four times the amount of malicious cyber activity in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023? This is equal to 8,800 attacks each day.

Many of these attacks target government and educational institutions. They include hacking, data leaks, distributed denial-of-service attacks, and misinformation campaigns.  

In response to this phenomenon, the Philippine government has unveiled its 2024-2025 budget, with a significant focus on enhancing the country’s cyber security infrastructure. The strategic investment isn’t just meant to safeguard the Philippines’ digital future, as it also aligns with the recently developed Philippine Skills Framework, designed to build a workforce with the essential skills to thrive in the digital age.  

Let’s explore how the country’s cyber security investment aims to equip professionals with essential skills to take on industry-specific challenges, strengthen cyber defences, and drive economic growth. Additionally, this blog will discuss the importance of improving your business’s cyber security posture, and how a partner like DDLS Aboitiz, trading as Lumify Work Philippines, can help you achieve this.

The 2024-2025 Philippine Government Budget and the Government’s Allocations to Cyber Security

The Philippine government budget for 2024-2025 reflects a substantial commitment to cyber security, with specific allocations dedicated to various initiatives. Let’s explore some of them:

• General Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Budget Appropriation: For 2025, the government has allocated PHP 7,840,559 to the DICT. This is 49.2% bigger than 2024’s budget of PHP 5,253,648.
   
• Cybercrime Investigation and Coordination Center (CICC) 2025 Budget: To prevent, suppress, and prosecute cybercrime, PHP 487,119,000 has been allocated to the CICC.
   
• Cybercrime Prevention, Investigation and Coordination Program 2025: A budget allocation of PHP 357,484,000 has been set aside for this program. The initiative also has a target of handling, monitoring, and assisting 3,500 cybercrime cases by 2025.

How does the Philippines’ ICT Sector affect its Economic Growth and Job Creation?

So far, the 2024-2025 Government budget has started to yield returns, improving the country’s ICT sector significantly:

• More Jobs: In 2024, 1.83 million jobs were generated in the ICT sector and IT Business Process Management (IT-BPM) industry, which is more than 59% greater than 2023’s record of 1.13 million jobs.
   
• Large revenue: The ICT and IT-BPM industries generated a total income of USD 39.33 billion (roughly PHP 2.2 trillion) in 2024, compared to USD 22.9 billion (approximately PHP 1.3 trillion) the year before. 
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• Increased training: About 70,000 ICT users were trained in 2024, skyrocketing from last year’s 2,110. The country’s goal is to train 48,000 new government ICT users by 2025. Lumify Work is actively supporting this effort by providing top-tier cyber security training to prepare the public sector workforce (recently, COMELEC and PSALM) to tackle any cyber threat.

Improving Cyber Security Skills through the Philippine Skills Framework

The alignment of the 2024-2025 Government budget with the Philippine Skills Framework is set to enhance both government and private sector capabilities. This ensures that cyber security skills in the country meet the rapidly evolving demands of the industry.

What is the Philippine Skills Framework?

The Philippine Skills Framework (PSF) is designed to guide individuals and businesses as they identify and develop the necessary capabilities for various industries. It details key roles, competencies, and career pathways to ensure that the workforce has the right skills and knowledge to thrive in today’s evolving job market. Ultimately, the government aims to create a more skilled and adaptable workforce, especially in the cyber security industry.  

If you’re looking to build a cyber security team or start a career in cyber, you can refer to the recently developed PSF for Software Development and Security. It outlines critical cyber security roles and competencies, such as:

• Chief Information Officer (CIO): CIOs are company executives responsible for managing and implementing computer technologies and information. They analyse how a certain technology benefits the organisation or improves an existing business process, and then devise a system to realise that benefit.
  • Skills and competencies: Business continuity, business development, change management, cyber risk management, IT governance, networking, portfolio management, sustainability management, vendor management
     
• Security Architect: Also known as information security architects, they design, implement, and maintain robust security architectures. They also perform penetration tests, ethical hacking, and risk analyses on local area networks, virtual private networks, and wide area networks to protect systems and assets from cyber threats.
  • Skills and competencies: Cyber security, data analytics, IT governance, network security, programming and coding, project management, disaster recovery management, stakeholder management, threat analysis, security threat research
     
• Senior Network Security Engineer / Security Infra Engineer: These individuals design, develop, and implement secure system architectures. They conduct regular audits of IT infrastructure systems and ensure that the documentation of security procedures and standards is constantly updated.
  • Skill and competencies: Cloud computing, cyber and data breach incident management, disaster recovery management, IT governance, network security, security strategy, security threat research, solution architecture, stakeholder management
     
• Security Operations Analyst: These professionals perform real-time analyses of security log data from different security systems and devices. They respond to user incident reports, evaluate the severity of security incidents, and identify recurring issues to develop mitigation plans and suggest process enhancements.
  • Skills and competencies: Cyber risk management, cyber security, data analytics, disaster recovery management, IT strategy, stakeholder management, threat intelligence and detection
     
• Security Operations Manager: These individuals are responsible for planning and overseeing the maintenance of security operations. They also provide expertise on security technologies and concepts and implement escalation processes for security incidents.
  • Skills and competencies: Audit and compliance, business continuity, cyber risk management, data governance, network security, programming and coding, security administration, security assessment and testing, security architecture
     
• Chief Information Security Officer: Also known as CISOs, Chief Information Security Officers lead the development and enforcement of their company’s security strategy, standards, and policies. They advise the board and top executives on all security matters and set directions for complying with regulatory inquiries and compliance regulations.
  • Skills and competencies: Audit and compliance, business continuity, cyber forensics, cyber risk management, disaster recovery management, network security, security governance, security operation compliance, threat analysis and defense, threat and vulnerability management

SQrity Consulting President and CEO Ricson Que was part of the team that developed the Software Development and Cyber Security Skills Framework. He was also one of Lumify Work Philippines’ esteemed panelists at PhilSec 2024. Que offered the following statement:

“Rather than solely relying on the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) National Initiative for Cyber Security Education (NICE) Framework, the Philippines now has its own tailor-made skills framework the Philippine Skills Framework (PSF) to strengthen and evolve local cyber security talent management.”  

“The availability of the PSF equips Philippine companies to create specialised cyber security job specifications suitable for their organisational needs and regulatory requirements. Additionally, the competency maps and standards in the PSF allow businesses to develop focused training, upskilling, and career progression programs for cyber security.”

Aligning Cyber Security Roles in your Organisation with Lumify Work Certifications  

To understand how the Philippine Skills Framework can help businesses improve their cyber security posture, let’s look at the PSF identified key roles matched with cyber security certifications under Lumify Work:

• Planners: Chief Information Officer (CIO), Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), and Security Operations Manager
• Builders: Security Architect and Senior Network Security Engineer / Security Infra Engineer
• Users: Security Operations Analyst and Senior Network Security Engineer / Security Infra Engineer
   

As such, private and public sector groups must upskill their workforce in cyber security to mitigate the risk of cyberattacks. This cyber security investment is crucial to building a robust cyber defence. The good news is that Lumify Work has virtual instructor-led training courses that companies can enrol in.

• Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP): This course tackles the eight domains of the CISSP CBK (Common Body of Knowledge) evaluated in the CISSP exam. It provides comprehensive knowledge of cyber security concepts and practices for effective implementation of security programs in any public or private sector entity. The CISSP course is best for planners and builders such as CISOs and CIOs. First 10 to sign up by September 6, 2024 can save as much as PHP 32,000!
   
• CompTIA Security+: This program emphasises vendor-neutral and hands-on practical skills in cyber security. It ensures that a cyber security professional is ready to solve complex organisational problems like improving incident response and baseline security readiness. CompTIA Security+ will benefit cyber security user roles being at the forefront of company’s cyber defence. Become one of the first 12 enrollees for this course by September 6, 2024 and get a discount of PHP 19,500!

For end users, Lumify Work also offers comprehensive cyber security awareness training through our Cyber Readiness Workshop. Aligned with CyberSAFE course materials and certifications, this program teaches non-technical staff (admin, marketing, sales, HR, finance, drivers, or facilities) to identify risks and better protect themselves, their organisations, and communities.

Lumify offers best-in-class cyber security training that caters to all skill levels. Our award-winning trainers deliver the most comprehensive training in the industry. We partner with leading cyber security vendors like ISACA, CompTIA, AWS, and ISC2. This means you complete our courses with the best knowledge and skills that can help you stay safe from cyber threats.

Check out our available cyber security courses here. You can also download our eBook “Meeting The Cyber Security Challenge For 2023 and Beyond.”