MALACAÑANG on Thursday assured Filipinos that the government was ready to address any crisis as some countries had advised their citizens to prepare for “sudden emergencies” such as armed conflict.
Some countries are preparing for a range of possible emergencies, including military conflict, cyberattacks, sabotage, natural disasters and prolonged power outages.
“That is exactly what the government is doing — prepare,” Presidential Communications Office Undersecretary Claire Castro said in a press briefing.
“So, you can expect the government to be ready for whatever might happen; the government is ready,” Castro said in Filipino.
The government has advised households to prepare an emergency “go bag,” which should include basic items such as medicines, sufficient water, flashlights, a whistle and simple food items (like easy-to-open canned goods) to sustain one person for at least 72 hours.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), through the Cybersecurity Bureau – National Computer Emergency Response Team (NCERT), on Wednesday advised all government agencies and critical information infrastructure (CII) operators to strengthen cybersecurity preparedness.
CII operators were advised to maintain heightened monitoring “in anticipation of potential cyber threat activity surrounding Nov. 5, 2026.” Previous monitoring recorded 38 security incidents on Nov. 5, 2025, with Denial-of-Service (DoS/DDoS) attacks and system compromises accounting for a significant portion of observed activity.
Recent threat intelligence has also highlighted critical PHP vulnerabilities, which have reportedly been exploited globally.
PHP is a widely used, open-source server-side programming language that powers roughly 70 percent of the world’s websites, including platforms like WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Wikipedia.
All concerned entities were urged to review internet-facing systems, apply relevant security patches, strengthen DDoS defenses, monitor suspicious network and system activity, verify incident response readiness, and ensure the integrity of critical backups.
Organizations should also assess their PHP-based applications for exposure and promptly report suspected cybersecurity incidents to DICT-NCERT.