The National Telecommunications Commission on Thursday expressed its support for Deputy Speaker Romero “Miro” S. Quimbo’s campaign against text scams.
Commissioner Gamaliel A. Cordoba of the NTC lauded Deputy Speaker Quimbo on his hard stance against fraudulent text messages, which threaten the security and safety of the public.
Recently, Quimbo requested the NTC to help him stop the dissemination of a text message fraudulently using his name and Tzu Chi Foundation. The text scam advises the recipient that he allegedly won a cash prize in a raffle.
Quimbo, representative of Marikina in the House, also urged the NTC to come up with tougher policies, stronger regulatory environment, and wider information campaign on text scams.
“We looked into the request of Honorable Deputy Speaker, and we agree that these scams potentially harm the receiver. These text scams do not only deceive, they also damage the name of publicly-known figures and organizations when the message particularly indicates a personality to lend credibility to its claim,” Cordoba said.
In 2016 alone, the NTC received 433 complaints on text scams. This figure does not include the unreported cases of this scheme since the victims are often unaware of the recourse available to them.
“We have around 110 million prepaid subscribers alone. As these fraudulent acts persist, more people will possibly be victimized, hence we need to identify the perpetrators of these scams. We encourage the public to be vigilant and to report the text scams to the NTC so we can take proper action,” Cordoba said.