FILE PHOTO: Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief General Benjamin Acorda reveals on Tuesday, February 6, 2024, that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered intensified action against cybercrime. Photo from the Official Facebook page of PGen Benjamin Acorda Jr.
MANILA, Philippines — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered an intensified crackdown on cybercrime, Philippine National Police (PNP) Chief General Benjamin Acorda revealed Tuesday.
Acorda presented the national crime statistics to the president in a Palace sectoral meeting. According to the PNP chief, overall crime was lowered by 10 percent, but cybercrime increased in the last quarter of 2023.
“As instructed by our president, we are intensifying, we are capacitating our police officers on the ground,” Acorda said in a subsequent Palace briefing.
However, he admitted that the PNP’s Cybercrime Group only operates on the regional level. Nevertheless, the president wants all concerned personnel to become well-equipped, Acorda added.
“This time, we are training our personnel, and our objective is that down to the police station level/municipal level, we will have police officers who are trained to handle cybercrime or online crimes,” the country’s top police boss said.
In line with this, Interior Secretary Benjhur Abalos said a National Cybercrime Training Institute would be at the Public Safety College.
“Maybe by next week or at least a month, I will sign it – its complete structure with the board of trustees, everything. And this will cater primarily to our police,” Abalos said, speaking partly in Filipino.
The Department of Information and Communications Technology recently bared that it thwarted cyberattacks on government websites that appeared to have come from China.
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The cyber intrusion targeted the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, the Philippine Coast Guard, and President Marcos’ website, the government said.