Re-electionist Senator Richard Gordon on Monday called on banks to enforce tighter online security to prevent hackers from stealing from clients’ accounts.

Gordon, who chairs the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, said banks should be more proactive in keeping their customers’ trust as managers of their financial assets.

The senator stressed that building trust is important in the banking industry and banks have the responsibility to go after perpetrators of online banking fraud.

“Para mapigilan yan, habulin natin yung nang-scam (to prevent that, they ought to go after those who made the scam),” Gordon said.

“It’s a relationship of trust. Kung nawawala yan, tungkulin ng bangko, sila mismo ang maghahanap ng paraan para mahuli ang mga scammers na ito (If clients’ funds are missing, the banks themselves, should exert the effort to go after these scammers),” he added.

Gordon was referring to the recent incident where two leading banks—BDO Unibank and UnionBank—were called out by netizens and clients over illegal wire transfer and theft through their online banking systems. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) immediately launched an investigation into the controversy.

Unlike previous instances of fraud where customers supplied sensitive details such as account number and one-time password (OTP), many claimed that they were only notified of an illegal cash transfer after the transaction was successful. Based on reports, the cash transfers were sent to a certain “Mark Nagoyo.”

Gordon said he hopes that the government would sharpen its teeth against cybercrime-related actovities and strengthen mechanisms against proliferation of false information on social media.

“We need to strictly enforce the Data Privacy Act and Cybercrime Prevention Act. The problem is, we have so many laws, but there’s lack of enforcement,” he lamented.