The hacking of the country’s voters database, which triggered a Central Bank warning to banks to protect their customers from identity theft, is “the wake-up call” which should scramble the government to create the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).

The call was made by Senator Ralph Recto, principal sponsor of the Congress-approved bill creating the DICT, who said “there is no designated guard of the country’s ICT infrastructure in the government at present.”

“It’s not the DOTC, despite “Communications” being there. It can’t even monitor the buses on our roads, how much more oversee the information highway? It’s not the DOST, even if the low-key Information and Communication Technology Office (ICTO) is under it,” Recto said.

Despite growing information and communications technology (ICT) use in the country and the BPO industry among the top three export earners, “there’s no department overseeing this sector even if every business group has been calling for the creation of one,” Recto said.

“What we have is a Balkanized system. Personnel investigating cybercrimes are so few and, worse, dispersed among government offices despite the increasing volume of transactions in all kinds of commerce being done online,” Recto said.

He cited the case of the Philippine National Police Anti-Cybercrime Group (PNP-ACG), which has a personnel complement of 110, “and this in a country where 70 million have social media presence.”

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), he said, is another “frontline office” which needs more “ICT investigators and equipment to flag cybercrimes and tag those behind them.”

The DICT law, Recto explained, mandates the creation of a “Cybercrime Investigation and Coordination Center.”

The DICT will also be tasked to formulate the “National Cybersecurity Plan” and form the “National Computer Emergency Response Team,” which, Recto said, will serve as “our IT Special Action Forces.”

Because “firewalling the country” from cyberattacks requires help from other countries, “work on international cooperation on intelligence regarding cybersecurity” will be done by the DICT, Recto explained.

Saying that the DICT should be part of the national security plan, Recto said “we now live in an era when terrorists don’t have to blast bank doors to do mayhem; but simply unleash a virus that could shred or suck out financial data.

“An enemy with a missile is as dangerous as one with malware,” he said. “Countries we are not so friendly with may target us and criminals will always want to hack their way to our financial system,” Recto said.

He said the hack-attack on Bangladesh Bank shows that the threat is real and countermeasures against cybercrimes urgent.

“The poor man’s ATM is vulnerable to hacking too. There are identity thefts victimizing ordinary people,” Recto said, citing “2014-2015 Cybercrime Report” prepared by the Department of Justice (DOJ) which ranked the Philippines 39th among countries with Internet threat activities.

The PNP-ACG recorded an increase of 113% in cybercrime statistics from 288 incidents in 2013 to 614 incidents in 2014.

According to the senator, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) reported 2,872 cases of ATM fraud during that period.

The growing menace of cybercrime, “and the jobs that the ICT sector can bring,” Recto said, should prod congressional and executive leaders to work for the immediate enactment of the DICT bill and thereafter implement it without delay.

“Ito na ang tamang panahon,” he said.

Both houses of Congress passed their own version of the DICT bill last year, with minor differences. To avoid convening a bicameral conference, the Senate, before it adjourned for the campaign season last month, conveyed to the House its decision to accept the House version.

Recto said that to gain Malacañang support, the DICT bill Congress had approved provides for a lean bureaucracy with a small but smart workforce.

Despite its “small budget footprint”, the proposed DICT will be a “powerful main server” which would spur ICT development, institutionalize e-government, and manage the country’s ICT environment,” Recto said.

“ICT is also the third biggest source of dollars after electronics and OFW remittances. It is a growth driver. Every 10 percentage points increase in broadband penetration is said to boost the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 1 percent,” he said.

Among the powers and functions of the DICT is the “identification and prioritization of all e-government systems and applications.”

The DICT will also formulate policies and initiatives to develop and promote ICT in education and promote consumer rights to reliable broadband service.