President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered the Philippine National Police to increase its capacity to address cybersecurity concerns through training its personnel and investing in technologies.
PNP Chief General Benjamin Acorda Jr. said there is a need for the police force to focus on cybercrimes.
“Although seemingly nakita natin na nag-improve ‘yung crime statistics—it went down by 10 percent—but as we dissected further this crime statistics, there is a need for us to focus on cybercrimes,” Acorda said.
The National Peace and Order Situation report presented a 10.66 percent drop in the total number of crimes reported between July 1, 2022, and January 31, 2024, compared to the period December 1, 2020, to June 30, 2022.
Acorda said that as of 2023, the PNP has so far trained some 487 police officers on cybersecurity.
Acorda said they would be complying with the Marcos directive by further expanding the access of their training down to every police station using their 2024 budget.
“Yung ang nakita natin na medyo tumaas, as reported during the last quarter. And in line with that, as instructed by the President, we are intensifying and capacitating our police officers on the ground, especially since ang ating cybercrime groups is only up to the regional level lang. This time, we are training our personnel, and our objective is down to the police station level and municipal level. We will have police officers who are trained to handle cybercrime or online crimes,” Acorda said.
According to Acorda, the PNP reported that most cybercrimes were committed locally, with swindling or estafa being the leading cybercrime, followed by illegal online access, identity theft, online libel, and credit card fraud, respectively.
Acorda stressed the need to reinforce public awareness of cybercrimes.
“Dissecting it further, ‘yung mga cybercrimes committed, it’s more on online scams. To our appreciation, it’s more of an awareness for our mga kababayan or the public about this skimming na ginagawa ng mga kriminal over the internet,” Acorda said.
Acorda acknowledged the role of the SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) Registration Act in establishing the identities of perpetrators.
“Malaking bagay po talaga when it comes to the identity, or establishing the identities of these perpetrators online. Through SIM card identification, medyo nati-trace natin, nakakatulong sa pagtrace natin sa mga identities ng mga scammers,” Acorda said.
