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Poe underscores necessity of passing anti-financial scam bill into law
Poe underscores necessity of passing anti-financial scam bill into law
Senator Grace Poe said the passage of Senate Bill No. 2560 or the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act into law is necessary to protect Filipinos’ hard-earned money as more shift to online banking and digital payments.
“They say that there are only two certain things in life: death and taxes. Ngayon, mukhang kinakailangan na nito ng amendment: death, taxes, and scams,” said Poe, one of the authors of the measure.
“These fraudulent schemes and rackets have become the bane of our financial consumers,” she added.
Poe noted that since the Covid-19 pandemic, Filipinos were pushed to rely on online financial transactions, but the spike in digital transactions also increased online fraud incidences as well.
Just last week, she noted that at least 120 e-wallet account holders lost money from a phishing scam as reported by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
Some teachers have also been reported losing as much as P26,000 to P121,000 to scammers after they were duped to give away their financial details, she pointed out.
“These stories and other countless reports of scams, shams, and other deceits only cement our status as a scamming hotbed in Asia,” Poe said.
Notably, the lawmaker said the Philippines ranked 5th among Southeast Asian countries in terms of phishing attacks and incidents in 2022. The same year, the country also lost a staggering P623-million to phishing and P409-million to identity theft.
“Mas malala pa ito as (This is worse as) cybersecurity experts believe that these incidents will only get worse in 2024 and beyond," Poe said.
Poe, who earlier worked for the passage of Republic Act 11934 or the SIM Registration Act to bolster security in digital transactions, said passage of the SB No. 2560 will complement the law.
Because this time, the Senate will tighten the security of all financial accounts like GCash, Maya, online banks, including e-wallets and most used apps like Shopee, Lazada and Grab.
“While financial education and literacy is still key in preventing these schemes, kinakailangan natin ng mas kongkretong aksyon para habulin at parusahan itong mga manloloko at masasamang loob (We need a more concrete action to go after and prosecute these fraudsters),” she said.
“These schemes chip away the trust in our financial system—threatening to undo years of progress in financial inclusion and digital innovation,” she lamented.