EDITORIAL - A dangerous weapon just waiting to be used

Chances are that this has happened to you already; you received a text message from a number that is unregistered on your mobile. The text is a about a lucrative job offer you were not even aware of. The ending is the same --they want you to contact a certain number for details, or go to a website, or use an app to reach them.

For some, especially those who are not in the market for a new job, it has become more of a text pandemic with a text coming in every few hours.

Acting presidential spokesman Karlo Nograles said the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is already looking into this.

“Oo, siyempre, ‘pag privacy issue ‘yan. It’s always a cause for concern not only for IATF but for government and for the public siyempre,” he was quoted as saying in an online news report.

Actually, we have yet to hear from the NTC about a similar incident just recently, the text blast regarding a politician’s filing of his certificate of candidacy last October.

This is what happened in case people don’t remember. When Bongbong Marcos filed his candidacy for president, phones near the venue where he filed were alerted to his actions and his campaign via emergency alert text message. The Marcos camp has denied being responsible for what can be considered a breach in privacy.

Whether or not Marcos was responsible for that incident is irrelevant. The fact that someone was able to hijack what was supposed to be a channel only for emergency alert messages is of more importance.

So far nothing has been heard of any investigation into that particular incident. And now we have people getting text messages from God-knows-who with fake promises of gainful employment.

It is likely some people may fall into such a trap considering how many lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic and its lockdowns.

But that is just one cause for concern, here is another; if some people can reach us with bogus messages regarding job offers, what’s to stop them from peddling political influence this coming campaign period? It is a dangerous weapon just waiting to be used.

We can certainly see some less-than-honest people or political groups smacking their lips at being able to manipulate information, and we can certainly see some people easily being tricked into believing whatever text they receive.

The NTC better get to the bottom of this and fast, time is running out.