To combat the surge in crimes involving scams online, President Marcos has signed into law Republic Act (RA) No. 12010 or the Anti-Financial Account Scamming Act (AFASA) which aims to protect Filipinos and their bank and e-wallet accounts from cybercriminals using technology to defraud them.

The President signed this law, along with RA 12009 or the New Government Procurement Act (NGPA) in a ceremony in Malacañan on Saturday morning, July 20.

In his speech, the President said the measure was essential as online scams cause Filipinos personal economic loss and distrust in financial institutions.

"I hope that through this law, we can deter the majority of the financial scams that we have been seeing while at the same time fostering greater trust in our digitization efforts," he said.

"This new law mandates financial institutions to implement necessary safeguards to protect our citizens' accounts... It will protect our people from falling prey to perpetrators who target their banks and e-wallet accounts," he added.

The AFASA also defines and penalizes money muling (a type of money laundering) activities, social engineering schemes, economic sabotage, and other offenses involving financial accounts.

Moreover, the new law authorizes the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to investigate and inquire into financial accounts that may be involved in the commission of prohibited acts.

It may also apply for cybercrime warrants and orders, and request the assistance of law enforcers in the investigation of cases.

The BSP shall be exempted from existing laws on bank secrecy and data privacy to gather sufficient information relative to the commission of prohibited acts under the Law.

The AFASA is one of the priority bills of the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC).