NEWS | A team of four young Filipinos has won the 2026 Cyber SEA Game, a cybersecurity contest for students and young engineers from Southeast Asian countries. It took place in Bangkok, Thailand on October 26 and 27, with nine national teams and 36 players joining. Singapore came second and Malaysia came third. Players solved security puzzles on topics such as website safety, secret codes and digital forensics, which means studying computers for clues about an attack.
The Filipino players come from four schools. They are the University of the Cordilleras in Baguio, Asia Pacific College in Makati, Mindanao State University Iligan Institute of Technology, and the University of Perpetual Help System Laguna Cauayan Campus in Isabela. The Department of Information and Communications Technology chose them through HackForGov, its yearly cybersecurity contest for students, which began in 2019. The Cyber SEA Game has support from the Japanese government.
Talent from across the country
Three of the four players were top individual scorers in their regional contests this year. The team leader, Justin Clark Ong, earned his place with the highest individual score at last year’s national contest. The president of the Philippine Computer Emergency Response Team said the win shows that cybersecurity talent exists outside Metro Manila. He also asked government agencies to give more support to state universities and private schools.
In BMN’s view, one win does not prove the top spot in the region has changed hands, because Singapore came in right behind. Still, the result shows the country’s talent search is finding skilled young people in many places. The next step matters just as much. Groups with little cybersecurity training stay easy targets, so these players will only make a difference if they find good jobs and room to grow here at home.
If four young Filipinos can win in Bangkok, who will be the next to make the country proud?
