Cybercrime training center for policemen

MANILA — The Department of Interior and Local Government is eyeing to have more municipal and local police officers formally trained in detecting and preventing cybercrimes after recording an uptick in cybercrime cases in the past year.

DILG Secretary Benhur Abalos said in a press conference on Tuesday that he will be greenlighting the creation of the National Cybercrime Training Institute and its Board of Trustees by “next week or next month.”

The training institute will be under the Philippine Public Safety College, which is under the DILG, Abalos said.

Abalos said that cybercrime is a “very technical and specialized field” and professionals trained to counter it are typically “pirated” due to the lucrative pay.

The DILG chief explained that the institute aims to train police officers to be capable of handling cybercrime complaints submitted at the municipal or local police station level.

Philippine National Police Chief Benjamin Acorda said that currently, only police personnel at the municipal level are given training on how to handle cybercrime cases.

“Although seemingly we have seen our crime statistics improve, it went down by 10%, there is a need for us to focus on cybercrimes. That’s what we saw went up in the last quarter,” Acorda said in a mix of English and Filipino.

“In line with that, we are intensifying our police officers on the ground — especially our cybercrime previously is only up to the regional level only. This time we are training our personnel at the police stations and at the municipal level so we will have police officers trained to handle cybercrimes,” Acorda added.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has expressed his support for the program, Abalos added.

According to PNP data, in 2023, the majority of the reported cybercrime incidents were online scams, followed by illegal access, identity theft, online libel and ATM / credit card fraud.

In January 2023, the PNP said that it would be focusing on addressing the rise in cybercrime incidents in the country, describing it as the “fastest-growing transnational organized crime” in the world.

According to the 2023 Asia Scam Report, the Philippines’ shopping scam rate is at a whopping 35.9%, the highest among 11 Asian economies surveyed.