Philippines working with other countries to address scam text messages

The Philippines is now coordinating with other countries to address scam text messages which have duped many Filipinos, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) said.

DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said the country was working with other territories to issue warrants against those involved in smishing schemes, but declined to elaborate.

“I cannot reveal to you, because it would signal... because some of the operators are located in those countries,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Bankers Night.

“Those law enforcement agencies, we’re working on them also to work on their warrants and so if I tell you where they are, they’ll pack up and leave,” he added.

This comes as personalized scam text messages have been prevalent in the country, with the National Privacy Commission (NPC) finding difficulty in determining the source of information.

Telco firms in June said they already blocked millions of “smishing” messages, referring to the practice of sending text messages purporting to be from legitimate organizations to obtain users’ personal information.

Uy said the agency’s Cybercrime Investigation Coordinating Center has been working hand in hand with the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) Cybercrime Group, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

“They pooled all their resources together and are working extensively to address this issue. This issue has been persistent and the syndicates that are operating are very well-funded, they are high-tech, very resourceful,” he said.

“Once you open one avenue, it leads to another rabbit hole, and then when you track that down, it leads to another and it goes all over the world. Then we need to tap our friends from the other law agencies in other countries,” he added.

Uy said the cybercriminals have been taking advantage of victims by duping them of minimal amounts, which would make it a deterrence for them to file cases.

“They don’t want to steal P100 million from one bank or from one financial institution because the bank’s going to go after them. But if they steal P100 from a million people, none of those 1 million people are going file a complaint when they lose P100,” he said.

“Ang laki ng abala sa kanila [Such a big hassle for them] for what? for P100? So we need our legislators to come up with laws in order to change probably how we prosecute these,” he added.

Uy said the government should be allowed to take action motu proprio, and file complaints even without a private individual executing an affidavit as this has been exploited by the scammers.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is set to sign the SIM Card Registration Act on Monday, requiring all users to register with public telecommunications entities (PTEs). — DVM, GMA News