A new int’l gateway up soon

Quietly, a new international gateway (IGW) in the Philippines is underway and will soon come online to upgrade our connectivity with Japan, the European Union (UN) and the rest of the world. Once the on-going submarine cables installation are fully installed and completed within this year, the new IGW will by-pass the existing IGW located along the western side of the Strait of Taiwan.

CyberCrime Investigating Coordinating Committee (CICC) executive director Alexander Ramos disclosed the newest IGW was part of the $450 million that Japan invested in this major telecommunications project it unilaterally offered to the Philippines in August last year. During our one-on-one chat at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum last Wednesday Ramos explained this new IGW will replace the existing IGW located in the eastern seaboard of the Strait of Taiwan that has been malfunctioning for a long time now.

An international gateway is any facility that provides an interface to send and receive electronic communications (i.e., voice, data and multimedia images/ video) traffic between one country’s domestic network facilities and those in another country.

According to Ramos, the submerged cables of our existing IGW at the Strait of Taiwan were allegedly hit by an anchor from a passing Chinese ship. Also called the Strait of Formosa, the Strait is a narrow body of water that separates the island of Taiwan from the southeastern coast of mainland China. The Strait extends from southwest to northeast between the South and East China seas. The Strait also borders on our own Luzon Strait, extending for more than 200 miles (320 kilometers) between the islands of Taiwan (north) and Luzon, Philippines (south). It connects the South China Sea (west) with the Philippine Sea (east).

But this IGW project had nothing to do with the simmering tension on the overlapping maritime territories at the South China Sea nor with Tokyo’s own territorial dispute with Beijing.

In fact, Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) Secretary Ivan John Uy earlier hailed the new IGW would secure the gateway for the Philippines to the rest of the world via Japan. Japan’s telecom giant IPS Inc. chief executive officer Koji Miyashita and Uy signed a memorandum of support for this project held in Tokyo on Aug. 25 last year.

“This will likewise ensure unhampered data connectivity via the Eastern Seaboard away from the highly contested South China Sea,” the DICT chief cited.

Ramos sought to underscore these initiatives as part of the whole-of-government efforts in addressing the challenges of the fast evolving technology that have given rise to many nefarious online scams and other internets frauds that have gone global.

Jason Brasileno, Fraud Strategy head of the digital bank GoTyme and ScamWatch Pilipinas spokesman Art Samaniego confirmed there have indeed been disturbing increase of cyber scams and frauds during the recent Christmas holidays. With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), Brasileno explained, the GoTyme tries to harmonize the digital banking that provides their customers real people instead of robots talking and addressing their needs.

Despite incidents of digital scams, Brasileno noted their customer base has reached two million for the past 14 months. Part of the Gokongwei group of companies, GoTyme is one of seven licensed for digital banking by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP). Brasileno cited GoTyme invested much to acquire sophisticated AI technology to fend off AI-aided cyber frauds. Thus, any unusual transaction is readily flagged and any fraud or scam attempt can be thwarted, he pointed out.

For his part, Samaniego, tech editor of the Manila Bulletin, underscored that solving cybercrimes is not the sole job of the government but is every Filipino’s concern. Based from latest survey, 70 percent of cyber scams and other e-commerce crimes have mostly victimized people in Facebook.

Samaniego reiterated the mantra being promoted by ScamWatch Pilipinas to avoid being victimized by fraudsters actively engaged online. To make it simple and most understandable, ScamWatch advises the following:

Mag-damot. (Don’t be too generous.) 

Magduda. (Doubt first, check and verify.)

Mag-snub. (Ignore and don’t click the link.)

Mag-report. (Report to CICC’s helpline 1-3-2-6)

Maghanda. (Practice “cyber hygiene” like regular changing and using strong passwords)

Samaniego exhorted victims not to be embarrassed in reporting the matter immediately to the CICC. “This is the only way to stop the scam-demics that could victimize also our family members, relatives, friends and other people in your Facebook social media circle,” Samaniego urged. 

According to Ramos, the CICC has already called the attention of Meta – that runs Facebook – “to fix” their system that obviously has very loose regulations. Todate, he noted, the CICC attended to as many as 13,000 cases of reported cyber scams and frauds since September last year. He could not, however, get into specific numbers of how many of these cases were prosecuted. He conceded the required due process once criminal charges are filed in court take a long time for justice to grind.   

Ramos, however, assuaged Filipino netizens the CICC has strengthened its “legacy project” of single platform under the National Cyber Crime Hub based at the Bonifacio Global City (BGC) in Taguig. Led by the DICT, Ramos vows their dedicated cyber experts with law enforcement personnel on board manning 24/7 the CICC 1-3-2-6 Hotline to quickly respond to any cybercrime complaints.

At the sidelines of our first Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum for the year 2024, Ramos further revealed Japan has also given 200 gigawatts of internet capacity to the Philippine government broadband that CICC runs and operates. This increased the Philippine government broadband speed and capacity from measly two gigawatts in the past, Ramos pointed out.

Ramos believes these latest information communications technology projects will close the gap needed by the CICC to be steps ahead against cyber criminals. With the upcoming completion of the newest international gateway for the Philippines, it is a bonus waiting to happen.