Dr. Rafael Frankel (left) and Rob Abrams, both from Meta Platforms, Inc. (Facebook)

Rob Abrams of American multinational technology conglomerate Meta has praised Philippine Congress and law enforcement agencies for being a "global leader" in flagging organized scam syndicates.

"I would also just like to add for the record the Philippine law enforcement community as well as the bicam (Congress) in general were among the first globally to flag this as a security threat," Abrams told the House tri-committee (tri-comm) hearing on Tuesday, April 8.

Abrams, META's head of law enforcemnt outreach for Asia Pacific was among the resource persons who attended the hearing, which mainly tackled the issue of disinformation and fake news.

He said the level of Philippine participation "has really stepped up the tempo of our work...the investments we're doing around this work".

“I say this under oath and I say this with a lot of passion. The Philippines has been seriously globally leader, global leaders when it comes to helping us fight forced criminality and these scam centers, formerly known as POGOs (Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators), if you like, that operate here in the Philippines target not only Filipinos but are engaged in human trafficking, forced criminality, and are a large part of the scam and increasingly misinformation ecosystem that again have a big role here," Abrams said.

Meta, formally known as Meta Platforms, Inc. owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and services.

"So I just want to publicly acknowledge the law enforcement agencies and military agencies, the military agencies, the regulatory agencies and indeed members of the bicam. You have been among the world leaders in flagging this not only as an economic threat to individual Filipino but a national security threat in the Philippines and globally," Abrams underscored.

The bicameral Congress of the Philippines is composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

"We have a great relationship with your law enforcement agencies," the Meta representative said.

Abrams even praised Filipino law enforcement representatives who joined a conference in Bangkok, Thailand last November. "Filipino law enforcement were among the flagship entities that were there. The NBI spoke, the PNP spoke. The PNP attaché in Bangkok spoke. He has been a fantastic advocate and source of trend-sharing."

"So I just want to express gratitude for helping shape the narrative on how serious of a threat this is to the global infrastructure," he further told House members during the Tuesday hearing.

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Another resource person in the hearing, META Director of Public Policy sa South East Asia Dr. Rafael Frankel, shared details of the company's accomplishments in terms of curbing the reach of organized crime syndicates.

“We've worked extremely hard to take down these networks on our platform to the point where by the end of 2024, we had removed and deleted over two million accounts that came from these organized criminal scam centers in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, the UAE and indeed a few here in the Philippines as well.

"Thanks very much to our collaboration with Philippines law enforcement.” Frankel said.