Two European countries have agreed to step up their partnership with the Philippines in defense technology and digitalization as President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. sought their respective government's support to digitalize the country's military as well as counter cyberattacks.
Marcos' bilateral meetings with the prime ministers of Czech Republic and Estonia paved the way for him to advance his administration's priorities.
With Czech Republic, the President asked assistance in the transfer of technology in the defense sector as he said it can elevate the defense production abilities in the country.
"It’s something that has been very helpful to the program of modernization that we are undergoing for defense forces in the Philippines especially now that we have... we are trying to strengthen the capabilities of our Coast Guard," Marcos told Czech Republic Prime Minister Petr Fiala at the sidelines of ASEAN-EU Summit in Belgium.
"But what would be even more interesting is besides just the equipment, would be the transfer of technology from your country to mine so that you are able to produce some of the material that is now being provided by other countries and perhaps use... make the Philippines a center for all that, the logistics," he added.
The modernization program for the country's Armed Forces is one of Marcos' agenda.
Meanwhile, Estonia vowed to bolster its cooperation with the Philippines in digitalization and e-governance—which Marcos has also been pushing for as he works on the country's economic recovery and efficient government services.
Marcos met with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas for a bilateral talk, where Marcos tapped Estonia for digital transformation as he noted of challenges of exposure to cyberattacks.
This, as he believed that Estonia "seemed to have managed the technologies so well that you’re able to resist that."
"We are presently in the midst of our digitalization of government.... both the national and the local levels. Furthermore, since we are digitalizing and digitizing, the issues of cybersecurity has come up, and we know the reputation of Estonia in terms of being able to resist the attacks that had been made to digital systems in the recent past up to the present," he said.
Kallas invited Marcos to go to Estonia to learn of its strategies.
"Cyberattacks and everything is connected... we have invested a lot in cybersecurity, of course, but usually when I show our system in a very simple way... 99 percent of our e-governance services or actually all the public services are digital," Kallas said.
"You don’t have like one big database. But you have very many small ones that are connected to each other. So if one of these is cyberattacked, it goes out, but all the others stay," she added.