By Rio N. Araja
4Ps party-list Rep. Marcelino Libanan on Sunday said Congress must seek the help of the National Bureau of Investigation cybercrime experts when conducting inquiries into critical system disasters, such as the New Year’s Day navigation system crash at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport that caused a massive flight disruption.
He cited the need “to leave no stone unturned” during investigations.
“If we want to be thorough in our investigation of unexpected critical system breakdowns, we have to call in a panel of specialists, including experts from the NBI’s cybercrime division, if only to rule out potential cyberattacks, sabotage, or other kinds of malicious activity,” he said.
“In the future, for example, if the national power grid system unexpectedly crashes and triggers a massive blackout, we should also bring in NBI experts, among other resource persons, to help in the investigation,” he added.
Libanan urged the NBI “to build up its staff proficiency and operational readiness” to launch its own investigations into critical system breakdowns.
“This way, Congress does not have to investigate every critical system crash,” he said.
The NBI should brace aggressively for the future, considering that cyberattacks clearly pose a growing threat, he said.
The House of Representatives committee on transportation is set to conduct an inquiry on Jan. 10 into the sudden failure of NAIA’s air traffic system that caused at least 282 flights to be cancelled, diverted, or delayed, and displaced over 56,000 passengers.
The incident set off further flight disorders in the succeeding days as airlines scrambled to launch recovery flights for affected passengers.
