Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Ray Villafuerte on Sunday said Filipinos are likely to benefit soon from a measure passed by the Congress last week that would empower the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the rest of the banking community to better protect financial consumers against phishing and other online scams, such as those that recently defrauded BDO Unibank and the Land Bank of the Philippines depositors.
“We are hopeful that President Duterte will sign this measure into law as soon as the enrolled bill is submitted to Malacañan Palace,” he said.
Villafuerte is one of the authors of the House-approved consolidated bill that aims “to regulate the use of bank accounts and electronic wallets and consider certain illegal financial acts related to their use as a form of economic sabotage and a heinous crime if done on a large scale.”
Both the Senate and House of Representatives ratified the final version of a measure on financial consumer protection before both chambers took a three-month break for the national elections on May 9.
Before the congressional break, he said the Senate ratified the measure designed to combat cybercrimes by, among others, penalizing social engineering schemes, commonly known as “phishing,” that led to illegal financial activities.
Congress earlier passed on third reading the bill’s version but subsequently adopted the Senate’s counterpart to do away with the bicameral conference committee process that could have required legislators from both chambers to first reconcile the conflicting provisions of their bills prior to the submission of an enrolled bill for President Rodrigo Duterte’s approval.
Villafuerte authored HB 10141, which was consolidated with other similar measures into a substitute bill that was later on passed by
Congress.
“COVID-19 has presented new opportunities for cybercriminal exploitation, including remote work, virtual crime and persistent
threats,” he said.
He lamented that the Philippines still has no law against the use of financial accounts as accessory to financial crimes.
In January, reports from the Teachers Dignity Coalition claimed that about 20 to 40 teachers lost between P26,000 and P121,000 each from their “hacked” LandBank accounts.
In addition, the Department of Justice indicted three Filipinos and a Nigerian for alleged hacking attack that victimized in early December about 700 Banco de Oro customers who reportedly lost P50,000 each through unauthorized transfers from their bank accounts.