Citing the 200 percent jump in cybercrime numbers, FPJ Panday Bayanihan Party-list Rep. Brian Poe has made the case for the augmentation of the Department of Information and Communications Technology’s (DICT) funds for next year.

Poe, a vice chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, served as budget sponsor of DICT on Sept, 30 during the marathon plenary debates on the P6.793-trillion General Appropriations Bill (GAB) for 2026.

Poe stressed the urgent need to strengthen the country’s cybersecurity, citing the sharp rise in cybercrime cases from 3,317 in 2023 to 10,004 in 2024. Losses from these crimes reached nearly ₱200 million in terms of direct victim costs and ₱5.82 billion in institutional damages.

“We increased the national security budget of the DICT by P1 billion. And I will break that down for you," he said.

"P812 million will go towards the National Security Operations Center. P103.42 million will go towards the PNPKI. Another P22 million will go towards the Expanded National Risk Assessment. P62.58 million will go towards personnel… These P62 million will represent a 500 percent increase in the capacity of DICT by adding 300 personnel," he noted.

Poe also explained how the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) will be scaled up through the 2026 budget.

“First is the Cybercrime Response Center (CRC). With the proposed P121 million expansion, we’re looking at significantly increasing the CRC’s capacity from handling 6,000 cases under fiscal year 2026 to 27,000 cases annually.

"The Cyber Complaint Center, or C3, will receive hopefully P30.5 million in their expansion, and this will increase its capacity from processing 6,000 complaints to 24,000 complaints," the legislator from Pangasinan said.

Poe continued: "The Threat Monitoring Center, or TMC, will hopefully receive P25 million as its allocation and equipped with AI (Artifitical Intelligence)-driven tools, will be able to analyze and detect up to 7,000 cybercrime threats annually and generate at least six intelligence reports for strategic use throughout the year.”

The party-list solon noted that these amendments were introduced precisely to respond to public concerns and strengthen DICT’s mandate.

He pointed to ongoing initiatives such as the “Scam Ba Yan” Project — a nationwide awareness drive launched by the CICC to help citizens identify and avoid scams — as part of the department’s broader effort to protect Filipinos online.