President Marcos has ordered the Philippine National Police (PNP) to strengthen the country's cyber security systems amid rising cybercrimes in the last quarter of 2023.
Marcos said it must be done by further training PNP personnel and investing in technology to address cyber crime and cyber security threats.
According to Malacañang, he also stressed the need to centralize and standardize all communication systems and platforms across the country's police force.
PNP Chief Benjamin Acorda Jr. disclosed that the goal is to train police officers down to the police station and municipal level to handle cybercrime or online crimes.
"There is a need for us to focus on cybercrimes at yun ang nakita natin na medyo tumaas (and we saw that there was a slight rise) as reported during the last quarter," Acorda said in a Palace briefing on Tuesday, Feb. 6.
"And in line with that, as instructed by our President, we are intensifying, we are capacitating our police officers on the ground, especially as of previously ang ating cybercrime group is only up to the original level lang but this time we are training our personnel and our objective is down to the police station level, municipal level, we will have police officers who are trained to handle cybercrime or online crimes," Acorda explained.
The order came after the PNP presented an improved national crime situation and operational accomplishments since the start of the Marcos administration in a sectoral meeting presided over by the President on Tuesday morning, Feb. 6.
While the peace and order indicator shows a 10 percent decrease in crime from the period of July 2022 to January 2024 compared to the period of December 2020 to June 2022, the cybercrimes in the country increased.
Acorda revealed that the top five most prevalent cybercrimes from July 2022 to January 2024 were swindling or estafa with about 15,000 cases; illegal access with more than 4,800 cases; identity theft with over 2,300 cases; online libel with over 2,000 cases; and credit card fraud with almost 2,000 cases.
Aside from bolstering the country's cyber system via training of police officers, Department of the Interior and Local Government Secretary Benjamin Abalos Jr. said the government will also set up a National Cybercrime Training Institute to ramp up the training of policemen in the country.
"We will have, under the Public Safety College, a National Cybercrime Training Institute. By next week or the most a month, I will sign this...And this will cater primarily to our police force," Abalos said in a mix of English and Filipino.
Marcos' meeting with the Acorda and Abalos, including other government officials, focusing on cyber security also came after cyberattacks on the Philippine government websites which were allegedly committed by groups that "are believed to be advanced threat groups that operate within the ambit of Chinese territories," according to Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Undersecretary Jeffrey Ian Dy.
China, however, has since denied its involvement in the cyberattacks, saying that the claims "are highly irresponsible."