GIANT technology company, Google Philippines, on Tuesday lauded the robust and “amazing growth” of the Philippine economy under the administration of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.
“Our reports reflect a lot of what you mentioned about the growth potential and the amazing growth that we’ve seen in the Philippines,” Google Philippines Country Manager Jackie Wang said.
Wang made the remarks during the question-and-answer portion of the “World Economic Forum” on Tuesday where she asked President Marcos on how he can help in the digitization journey and make “a digital Philippines.”
She said that Google’s own digital economy report reflects a lot of what the President mentioned about the growth potential in the Philippines.
Since 2023, the Philippines’ digital economy is as big as US$23 billion in growth in merchandising value and has a compound “giga growth” of 16 percent, as described by the Google official.
In response, President Marcos Jr. invited 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. And–to start with government when I first came, when we first came into office,” the President said.
“We conducted a survey and on how–what are the consumers’ habits when it comes to the use of the internet and we got back statistics which was really rather worrisome and that was that 95 percent of an ordinary Filipino citizen’s activities in terms of payment, for example, clearances and all that, 95 percent of the activity is over the internet. The last five percent was government and that’s why we still are falling behind,” he pointed out.
The President described the cyber security problem as “the darker side of the technology,” which has become quite pronounced prompting the government to respond.
“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,” Marcos said adding that it therefore, becomes imperative for the private sector to take part in ensuring cyber scams and cyberattacks are effectively managed.
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