The past few weeks is chaotic for different government agencies and their data online. After the massive PhilHealth breach that exposed over 600GB worth of sensitive data, the Philippine Statistics Authority, DOST, and PNP have been victims of hacking as well. If that’s not enough, hackers decided to even defaced the site of the House of Representatives on a Sunday–though no data was stolen in the incident. This prompts the question on why there are not enough cybersecurity experts in the Philippines to avoid such incidents from happening.

One of the primary reasons is that the Philippines is experiencing a “brain drain” for cybersecurity experts due to low pay. DICT Assistant Secretary Renato Paraiso explained this in an interview with ANC, explaining that there’s a significant pay gap in government and local firms. In Paraiso’s explanation, one of the reasons why the government is lacking in cybersecurity experts is because of the higher pay they could get if they work in the private sector.

The government’s cybersecurity problem goes beyond the lack of experts: there’s also an issue in the lack of funding for proper infrastructure as well. Aside from PhilHealth admitting that they failed to renew their antivirus subscription, Paraiso adds that the government lacks a system that acts as a firewall against these hackers from trying to infiltrate the online services of government agencies.

The DICT could have helped the government in improving its cybersecurity if the proposed Php 300 million in confidential funds was not reallocated to different agencies. The said proposed fund could have been used in investing a robust firewall system to protect the government’s online portals from actors, and to train cybersecurity experts and personnel.