Officials of the PNP-CIDG and NBI presented their proposals in a meeting with the Congressional Oversight Committee on the E-Commerce Law last week.
Meneses said the agency has been going after cyber-criminals and was fortunate to have received donations from the US government, in the form of computer equipment and training on computer forensics. The agency, however, has no yearly allocation for its anti-cybercrime efforts and laboratory.
"We presented our proposal and our accomplishments. The oversight committee was happy about what we're doing. We have requested for some funding from Congress. But we were told about a four-billion-peso fund allocated for e-government. We think it is hard for us to get funding from Congress since our budget has been reenacted," Meneses said.
NBI hopes for at least 12 million pesos a year to finance its own anti-cybercrime operations and laboratory.
"Since 1997, we have not received appropriation from government. We're now talking with PNP to discuss how to go about with the proposal to get funding from the e-government fund," Meneses said. The NBI is a law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice.
Police Superintendent Gilbert Sosa, chief of PNP-CIDG Anti-Transnational Crime Division (ATCD), declined to comment. The PNP is under the Department of Interior and Local Government.
In a separate interview, Janette Toral, the executive director of the commitee's secretariat, said that both law enforcement agencies have never received funds from government to fight cybercrime in the country.
"The oversight committee has intervened to get the attention of the heads of these agencies," she said, noting that the PNP-CIDG and NBI were asked to submit their final proposals on their anti-cybercrime programs.
The E-commerce Law has provisions that penalize computer crimes, such as hacking.
"Based on what we heard during the meeting, both agencies believe that they need a cybercrime law to get funding. The E-commerce Law is enough to support them," Toral said.
Virgilio Peña, chairman of the Commission on Information and Communications Technology, told INQ7.net that the DBM is allocating around one billion pesos for this year's e-government fund. The CICT is currently managing the e-government fund, and has created a technical working group to evaluate proposals from government agencies.
Senator Manuel Roxas II and Representative Junie Cua co-chair the Congressional Oversight Committee on E-Commerce Law.
Autor: Erwin Lemuel Oliva
Quelle: INQ7.net, 13.092.2006
