Senator Grace Poe on Thursday cited the pressing need to strengthen the government’s countermeasures against scams and cyber criminals.
Earlier, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) reported that about P1 billion worth of money and cryptocurrencies were discovered linked to SIM cards confiscated in various raids by security authorities in less than two months.
Among the biggest raids was the one in Pasay City where over 25,000 SIM cards were confiscated from an alleged Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (POGO) facility, DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) earlier said these SIM cards were believed to be used in online scams.
Poe also said there is also a need to study the DICT’s request for confidential funds.”Its dismal budget utilization rate of just 32.2% in 2022 leaves little confidence in terms of proper utilization of the fund,” Poe, chairperson of the Senate Committee on Public Services, said.
“Confidential funds were not consistently granted to DICT but we will ask the Commission on Audit to discuss with us how the P1.2 Billion confidential funds were used in the past by the agency,” she added.
On Wednesday, Uy justified his agency’s request for P300 million in confidential funds under the proposed 2024 national budget. He emphasized the additional funds would be used to go after online and text scammers who continue to victimize Filipinos.
Poe said lawmakers expect Uy to be prepared to defend the request.
Uy said that to go after cyber criminals, the government should invest in strengthening its tools against scammers.
“These cyber criminals are very well-funded, very well-organized, and very highly technical. So, the government needs to match them, right now our hands are tied and to be able to catch up to them we need the proper tools,” he added.
Previously, the Department of Budget and Management called out DICT for its low utilization of budget among other agencies.
DICT has reportedly used only 5.6% of its budget this year.
Uy said that DICT will address the issue and boost its spending, noting a 70 percentage points increase in budget utilization by the end of the year. With Charles Dantes