ADVERTISEMENT
Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider National devider Cloudfare outage highlights urgent need for Philippine cybersecurity structure, says Villafuertes

Cloudfare outage highlights urgent need for Philippine cybersecurity structure, says Villafuertes

Published Nov 28, 2025 10:19 am

At A Glance

  • Camarines Sur 5th district Rep. Migz Villafuerte and 2nd district Rep. Luigi Villafuerte pointed to the recent, crippling Cloudflare service outage as potential impetus for the Philippines to come up with its own national cybersecurity structure.
(Unsplash)
(Unsplash)


Camarines Sur 5th district Rep. Migz Villafuerte and 2nd district Rep. Luigi Villafuerte pointed to the recent, crippling Cloudflare service outage as potential impetus for the Philippines to come up with its own national cybersecurity structure.
The Villafuertes said everyone appears vulnerable to cyber risks, if such disruptions could happen to the likes of Cloudflare, which specializes in online security and claims to manage a hefty 20 percent of global internet traffic.
They gave this warning following a recent hearing of the House Committee on Information and Communications Technology (ICT), wherein the panel tasked a technical working group (TWG) to combine into one comprehensive bill over a dozen cybersecurity and critical information infrastructure protection (CIIP) measures meant to combat the increasingly insidious attacks on cyberspace across the globe.
Reps. Luigi and Migz--who chairs the committee--said the Nov. 18 Cloudflare outage showed the urgent need for action on the matter as far aa the Philippines is concerned. Major websites like social network X (formerly Twitter), Google, and OpenAI (the creator of ChatGPT) were affected by this.
Cloudfare had publicly admitted “a spike in unusual traffic” in one if its services after “a latent bug in a service underpinning our bot mitigation capability started to crash after a routine configuration change we made."
Previously, similar disruptions in online services affected Amazon and Microsoft cloud services.
Migz Villafuerte said that the TWG will draft a consolidated bill: (1) protecting institutions and digital systems from cyberattacks by beefing up the country’s capability to prevent, detect and respond to cyber threats; and (2) safeguard against cyber risks the country’s essential systems, including those in banking and finance, emergency services and disaster response, broadcast media, energy, health, telecommunications and transportation.
“Our committee expects the TWG to hammer out a consolidated bill on a national framework anchored on the adoption of minimum information security standards, to keep our vital sectors secure and resilient against disruptions that could undermine public safety and national stability," he said.
"The task at hand is to preserve data privacy, strengthen digital defenses and ensure safety in our online environment,” he added.
Among the bill up for consolidation is the Villafuertes' very own HB No.2826, which seeks the creation of the National Cybersecurity Agency (NCSA). It will be tasked to craft and carry out a masterplan for building a robust defense infrastructure against cyberattacks.
The proposed NCSA--which shall be under the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT)--will also standardize protocols for threat detection, information sharing and incident response, as well as CIIP.
Rep. Luigi said that under HB No.2826, the DICT shall put up a National Computer Emergency Response Team (NCERT). Composed of cybersecurity experts, the NCERT shall respond quickly to cybersecurity incidents of threatened organizations, with the aim of minimizing the damage and ensuring recovery of affected systems.
This NCERT shall establish a liaison network of CERTs or computer emergency response teams among government agencies to support the implementation of the NCERT’s mandate, the deputy majority leader said.
ADVERTISEMENT
.most-popular .layout-ratio{ padding-bottom: 79.13%; } @media (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px) { .widget-title { font-size: 15px !important; } }

{{ articles_filter_1561_widget.title }}

{{ item.title }}
.most-popular .layout-ratio{ padding-bottom: 79.13%; } @media (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px) { .widget-title { font-size: 15px !important; } }

{{ articles_filter_1562_widget.title }}

{{ item.title }}
.most-popular .layout-ratio{ padding-bottom: 79.13%; } @media (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 1024px) { .widget-title { font-size: 15px !important; } }

{{ articles_filter_1563_widget.title }}

{{ item.title }}

{{ articles_filter_1564_widget.title }}

{{ item.title }}
.mb-article-details { position: relative; } .mb-article-details .article-body-preview, .mb-article-details .article-body-summary{ font-size: 17px; line-height: 30px; font-family: "Libre Caslon Text", serif; color: #000; } .mb-article-details .article-body-preview iframe , .mb-article-details .article-body-summary iframe{ width: 100%; margin: auto; } .read-more-background { background: linear-gradient(180deg, color(display-p3 1.000 1.000 1.000 / 0) 13.75%, color(display-p3 1.000 1.000 1.000 / 0.8) 30.79%, color(display-p3 1.000 1.000 1.000) 72.5%); position: absolute; height: 200px; width: 100%; bottom: 0; display: flex; justify-content: center; align-items: center; padding: 0; } .read-more-background a{ color: #000; } .read-more-btn { padding: 17px 45px; font-family: Inter; font-weight: 700; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px; text-align: center; vertical-align: middle; border: 1px solid black; background-color: white; } .hidden { display: none; }
function initializeAllSwipers() { // Get all hidden inputs with cms_article_id document.querySelectorAll('[id^="cms_article_id_"]').forEach(function (input) { const cmsArticleId = input.value; const articleSelector = '#article-' + cmsArticleId + ' .body_images'; const swiperElement = document.querySelector(articleSelector); if (swiperElement && !swiperElement.classList.contains('swiper-initialized')) { new Swiper(articleSelector, { loop: true, pagination: false, navigation: { nextEl: '#article-' + cmsArticleId + ' .swiper-button-next', prevEl: '#article-' + cmsArticleId + ' .swiper-button-prev', }, }); } }); } setTimeout(initializeAllSwipers, 3000); const intersectionObserver = new IntersectionObserver( (entries) => { entries.forEach((entry) => { if (entry.isIntersecting) { const newUrl = entry.target.getAttribute("data-url"); if (newUrl) { history.pushState(null, null, newUrl); let article = entry.target; // Extract metadata const author = article.querySelector('.author-section').textContent.replace('By', '').trim(); const section = article.querySelector('.section-info ').textContent.replace(' ', ' '); const title = article.querySelector('.article-title h1').textContent; // Parse URL for Chartbeat path format const parsedUrl = new URL(newUrl, window.location.origin); const cleanUrl = parsedUrl.host + parsedUrl.pathname; // Update Chartbeat configuration if (typeof window._sf_async_config !== 'undefined') { window._sf_async_config.path = cleanUrl; window._sf_async_config.sections = section; window._sf_async_config.authors = author; } // Track virtual page view with Chartbeat if (typeof pSUPERFLY !== 'undefined' && typeof pSUPERFLY.virtualPage === 'function') { try { pSUPERFLY.virtualPage({ path: cleanUrl, title: title, sections: section, authors: author }); } catch (error) { console.error('ping error', error); } } // Optional: Update document title if (title && title !== document.title) { document.title = title; } } } }); }, { threshold: 0.1 } ); function showArticleBody(button) { const article = button.closest("article"); const summary = article.querySelector(".article-body-summary"); const body = article.querySelector(".article-body-preview"); const readMoreSection = article.querySelector(".read-more-background"); // Hide summary and read-more section summary.style.display = "none"; readMoreSection.style.display = "none"; // Show the full article body body.classList.remove("hidden"); } document.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded", () => { let loadCount = 0; // Track how many times articles are loaded const offset = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]; // Offset values const currentUrl = window.location.pathname.substring(1); let isLoading = false; // Prevent multiple calls if (!currentUrl) { console.log("Current URL is invalid."); return; } const sentinel = document.getElementById("load-more-sentinel"); if (!sentinel) { console.log("Sentinel element not found."); return; } function isSentinelVisible() { const rect = sentinel.getBoundingClientRect(); return ( rect.top < window.innerHeight && rect.bottom >= 0 ); } function onScroll() { if (isLoading) return; if (isSentinelVisible()) { if (loadCount >= offset.length) { console.log("Maximum load attempts reached."); window.removeEventListener("scroll", onScroll); return; } isLoading = true; const currentOffset = offset[loadCount]; window.loadMoreItems().then(() => { let article = document.querySelector('#widget_1690 > div:nth-last-of-type(2) article'); intersectionObserver.observe(article) loadCount++; }).catch(error => { console.error("Error loading more items:", error); }).finally(() => { isLoading = false; }); } } window.addEventListener("scroll", onScroll); });
Join Our Newsletters

Sign up by email to receive news.

© 2025 Manila Bulletin The Nation's Leading Newspaper. All Rights Reserved.