My dear friends, I am deeply honored to be here with you today! Thank you Adrian for inviting me; and to the person who suggested to you to get me as your guest speaker for this occasion. Thank you, whoever you are. . .

I am home! ASR is the home of every Army Signal Corpsman. I am always proud to belong here and be one among you. I remember ten years ago, the artillery and armor officers were planning, around at the same time with us, for the creation of their Artillery Regiment and the Mechanized Brigade, respectively. The cannoners and the cavalries realized their dreams in a very short span of time compared to us, signaleers. Nevertheless, the probationary Army Signal Regiment was born on April Fools’ Day of the year 2011, six years ago – with General Costes, my classmate, as the first unit commander. He was laughing! It was also on April Fools’ Day that we both entered PMA as plebes and company mates; but during that day in 1976, we were not laughing . . .

I want to tell you, that up now, I am committed to work for the regularization of the Army Signal Regiment, by removing those letter P and pair of parentheses attached after its name. Perhaps, you have read my blog already regarding the things that transpired during the first hearing at DND. The chairman, the Assistant Secretary for Plans and Program of the Department, denied your request for the regularization unless you raise your readiness on personnel fill-up to R2, which is around 80%. No amount of my justification and explanation, you have to comply! I heard from your CGPA and G6 that there are developments ongoing already regarding additional personnel. We just have to wait and be patient. The Army Signal Regiment and the whole Army will have its own brigadier general once the fill-up is realized. So let’s make the regularization happen this year!

There is one thing that has been bothering me lately since attending the launching of the Cyber Security Master Plan late last year by the Department of Information and Communications Technology. DICT told everybody during the summit that DND will defend the country from cyber attacks! Sabi ko, Ano? (Pause) Anyway, I am not afraid to face this challenge to defend the country inside the 5th domain of warfare because I know the whole Signal Corps is behind me . . .

For your appreciation, I am designated as co-chair for the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting (ADMM) Plus Expert’s Working Group (EWG) for Cyber Security, together with New Zealand, for this year until 2019. In my briefing, I told the delegates that Cyber Security is not simply reacting to threats. For the member states of ADMM-Plus (e.g. 10 ASEAN countries and to include US, China, Russia, Japan, Australia, India, New Zealand and Republic of Korea), Cyber Security is about shaping creative and sustainable combinations of technology and social responses at an international level. On technology, it talks about sensors in detecting attacks and reactors to suppress attacks; and on social responses, it involves respective citizens and mutual cooperation on sharing of information. The conference will start with the identification of Points-of-Contact and the establishment of Cyber Security Centers. As the person in charge for the cyber defense of the country, I have nothing but to rely on you, signal corpsmen. So rise up to the occasion! We have to develop our own skill sets. I will meet with you from time to time to discuss the plan on cyber defense, and secretly on cyber offense! I will share with you the various training promised by the different countries (mostly from US and Singapore). We have to identify talents and create eligibility lists.

So to summarize, I have taken three things with you: First is the regularization of ASR; second is is to champion the defense of the country from cyber attack; last and not the least is to develop our skill-sets on cyber security . . .

LIMA CHARLIE?

In closing, let me share with you my precept on my job, “To be a successful cybersecurity professional, there needs to be a creative side. You have to be able to look at a problem and see different solutions, things that nobody else sees.”