DICT to appeal removal of confidential funds, warns of blow to cybersecurity

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Information and Communications Technology warned that the lawmakers’ move to strip the agency of its confidential funds conveys a “wrong message” that the Philippines is not committed to safeguarding its cyber borders.

DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said Wednesday that the department will send an appeal to Congress to restore its proposed P300 million in confidential funds. 

“It will be a big blow. Basically, we’re sending the wrong message to all cybercriminals that the Philippines is an open city, that they can commit whatever they want here and the government will not be able to do anything to go after them or prevent them from doing their criminal acts here,” Uy said in an interview with ABS-CBN News Channel.

The House of Representatives decided Tuesday to allocate zero confidential funds to the Office of Vice President Sara Duterte, Department of Education, DICT, Department of Agriculture, and Department of Foreign Affairs in the proposed national budget for next year. 

“While cyber threats and cyber criminals are increasing and becoming more sophisticated and they have more funds to do so, the Philippines, going against the tide of the rest of the world, is defunding our cybersecurity and is actually announcing to the world that we’re not interested in protected our cyber borders,” Uy said. 

According to the House appropriations committee, a total of P1.23 billion in confidential funds will be realigned to agencies leading the efforts to uphold the country’s territorial rights in the West Philippine Sea such as the Philippine Coast Guard. 

But Uy emphasized that while efforts are being made to protect physical borders, cyber borders also require significant attention.

“What about our cyber borders?” he asked. “You already saw how our PhilHealth was attacked. And there will be more of these in the coming days and weeks and coming years. That does not alarm anybody?”

Authorities have said that a “staggering” amount of files equivalent to around 734 gigabytes of data had been leaked from PhilHealth, including personal and sensitive information. The state health insurer earlier advised the public to change the passwords of