At the Google.org Impact Summit Asia Pacific in New Delhi, Scam Watch Pilipinas delivered a pointed reminder to the region’s tech and policy leaders: the weakest link in cybersecurity is no longer the server—it’s the citizen.
Opening the roundtable “Building a Scam-Resilient Digital Future in APAC,” co-founder Jocel de Guzman argued that while institutions pour millions into firewalls and encryption, they have underinvested in digital safety for ordinary users. “Cybersecurity protects infrastructure. Digital safety protects citizens,” he said, calling for resilience that reaches the “last mile.”
The urgency is hard to ignore. In January 2026, the World Economic Forum identified cyber-enabled fraud as one of the most pervasive global risks, with 73 percent of surveyed leaders reporting personal or organizational impact. Fraud and phishing have now eclipsed ransomware in boardroom anxiety, fueled by AI-powered social engineering and increasingly tangled supply chains.
Yet de Guzman noted a structural blind spot: many institutions that champion a Whole of Society approach have yet to adopt a Whole of Organization mindset internally. Digital safety, he said, must be embedded across leadership, onboarding, product design, and customer engagement—not relegated to the CISO’s inbox.
The session was convened by Rowan Barnett of Google.org and drew leaders from the ASEAN Foundation, Mastercard, GSMA and other regional groups.
Central to the discussion was the Philippine Anti-Scam Quad Model, a framework combining behavioral nudges, community education, cross-sector coordination, and tech-enabled reporting tools such as the 1326 National Anti-Scam Hotline and the Whoscall app by Gogolook. Its premise is disarmingly simple: if one pillar falters, the system falters.
In an era of algorithmic deception, Scam Watch Pilipinas’ message was almost old-fashioned—empower people first. The servers, after all, can only do so much.
