MANILA, Philippines — Social media users who uploaded a deepfake au dio recording of President Marcos are facing cybercrime charges filed by a group of social media influencers.
The group has been advised to submit requirements showing they are authorized to file the complaint on behalf of the President, said police Anti Cybercrime Group (ACG) cyber response unit chief Col. Jay Guillermo.
The Kapisanan ng Social Media Broadcaster ng Pilipinas Inc. (KSMBPI), led by chairman Michael Raymond Aragon, filed a complaint before the ACG against persons who uploaded copies of the deepfake on social media.
They have been charged with unlawful use of means of publication and unlawful utterances under Article 154 of the Revised Penal Code, in connection with Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act.
The audio deepfake had Marcos ordering the Armed Forces of the Philippines to intervene if China posed a threat to the country.
Aragon said they, as private citizens, are within their rights to file complaints against people spreading falsehoods on so cial media, especially when national security is at risk.
Anna Tan, KSMBPI legal counsel, said they have identified around 10 persons responsible for uploading the deepfake on four or five social media sites.
The group had to take action as some social media users were spreading false information using artificial technology, Tan added.
The government earlier said a foreign actor is likely behind the audio deepfake.
Guillermo said investigators are studying the case filed by the group but it could take months, as tracing an internet protocol address does not immediately lead to the perpetrators’ identity.
Controlling or proactively blocking spam texts, phishing attempts and child sexual abuse material could soon be performed by three telecommunications firms, as well as small and local internet service providers, according to the Department of Information and Communications Technology.
The DICT on May 2 met with telcos and the National Telecommunications C ommission to discuss the worsening problem of unsolicited text promotions and scams faced by telco subscribers in recent months.
“We are studying taking that measure,” DICT Undersecretary for cybersecurity, connectivity and upskilling Jeffrey Ian Dy told The STAR.
Representatives of Smart Communications, Globe Telecom and Dito Telecommunity, as well as NTC Commissioner Ella Blanca Lopez and Deputy Commissioner Jon Paulo Salvahan, attended the meeting.
“In that meeting, the DICT offered to provide tools to telcos including information on known scam URLs. We need to share information with each other so it would not spread,” Dy recalled.
“Because of this consultation, we, NTC and DICT, are processing a memorandum for telos,” he added.
Globe has yet to take effective action against a fake Globe Rewards text scam that spoofs or impersonates the Globe SMS 8080 text channel.
Last month, the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center raised an alert regarding the spread of a fake Globe Rewards promo campaign that collected the personal and bank details of unsuspecting victims.
In February, Globe started removing clickable links from official customer advisories. — Rainier Allan Ronda
The STAR Cover (May 15, 2024)
The implementing rules and regulations for the Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program are out, although distribution of the aid has not yet started, according to the agency in charge of AKAP, the Department of Social Welfare and Development. The DSWD has been allocated P26.7 billion under the national budget this year to implement AKAP, whose intended beneficiaries are low-income minimum wage earners who have been severely affected by rising inflation.
Excluded from AKAP are beneficiaries of other regular DSWD assistance programs such as the conditional cash transfer or 4Ps – the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. AKAP includes food and medical aid, funeral assistance and cash handouts ranging from P1,000 to P10,000, with the amount to be based on the need assessment conducted by a DSWD social worker.
DSWD Secretary Rex Gatchalian has said politicians will not be allowed to directly participate in the distribution of AKAP. The DSWD must make sure this aspect of the aid program is strictly enforced. Local government units have a role in the distribution of AKAP. With the midterm elections approaching, the DSWD could be hard-pressed to stop LGU officials from taking personal credit for any form of state-funded aid.
The DSWD should go one step further and get all its programs away from the clutches of credit-grabbing or epal politicians, from national to local and grassroots government levels. Several politicians are notorious for epal and are surely known to the DSWD, an agency with supervision over many of the cash handouts and other forms of aid to the poorest sectors. Credit grabbing is supposed to be banned on billboards providing the details for public infrastructure projects. This should be extended to ayuda or aid programs. AKAP can be a good start for this.
Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, the first national police chief under Rodrigo Duterte, conducts a Senate probe that revives stories about Ferdinand Marcos Jr. being a cocaine addict.
Senator Bato presents Jonathan Morales, a former agent of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, who tells the Senate panel that he signed PDEA documents in 2012 listing BBM and actress Maricel Soriano as subjects of drug surveillance.
Surigao del Norte 2nd District Rep. Robert Ace Barbers then announces that the House committee on dangerous drugs, which he chairs, will summon Duterte’s controversial former economic adviser Michael Yang in connection with a P3-billion shabu bust last year in Mexico, Pampanga.
A probe by the previous Senate Blue Ribbon committee headed by Richard Gordon indicated that Yang, long hounded by accusations of drug trafficking, brokered the multibillion-peso sweetheart deal awarded by the Duterte administration to Pharmally Pharmaceuticals at the height of the COVID pandemic, and served as the company’s financier.
Barbers said Yang’s interpreter Lincoln Ong, also implicated in the Pharmally scandal, is an incorporator of Empire 999, the company that owns the Pampanga warehouse where the illegal drugs were found.
Gordon, in his committee report that most senators refused to sign, included Rodrigo Duterte himself among those who should be held accountable for the Pharmally mess. Now that the Dutertes have had a bitter falling out with the Marcos-Romualdez clan, do those senators regret protecting the former president?
The buzz in the Tsinoy community is that Yang skipped town shortly after the Pharmally scandal erupted during the Duterte administration. Barbers’ panel will have no one to grill; on Monday he said other Chinese nationals he wanted to summon were found to have left the country.
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Dela Rosa seems unfazed by criticisms of his panel’s probe of the so-called PDEA leaks. He said the surveillance and possible raid on Soriano’s condominium unit in Rockwell did not push through because then president Noynoy Aquino’s executive secretary Paquito Ochoa stopped it.
Ochoa, a partner in the law firm of BBM’s wife Liza Araneta-Marcos, has twice been a no-show at the Senate hearing, the second time ostensibly because he caught COVID. Dela Rosa intends to proceed with his questioning of Ochoa. Last Monday, the probe managed to revive the story about BBM undergoing a drug test during the 2022 campaign, after then president Digong accused an unnamed presidential candidate of being a cokehead.
Senator Bato’s probe also learned from a doctor of St. Luke’s Medical Center, where BBM underwent the drug test, that it was specifically for cocaine and not for other illegal drugs.
BBM has called Jonathan Morales a “professional liar” and a “jukebox” that plays any song for a fee.
The government is also studying its options in dealing with the arrest warrants that the International Criminal Court is expected to issue by midyear for Duterte, and in subsequent batches for Dela Rosa himself and his successor as national police chief, Oscar Albayalde, and possibly for Vice President Sara Duterte.
Dela Rosa, the architect of Oplan Tokhang, was chief enforcer of the most brutal phase of Duterte’s drug war; Albayalde carried out Oplan Double Barrel, which focused on bigger drug trafficking suspects.
As this tit for tat becomes even more personal, there’s talk that the Marcos 2.0 administration may revive the accusations of drug smuggling by the ton through the Bureau of Customs in the previous administration.
Testifying at the time at a Senate inquiry led by Antonio Trillanes IV, BOC “fixer” Mark Taguba tagged a Davao-based group in large-scale drug smuggling, initially implicating Duterte’s son Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte and Sara Duterte’s husband Mans Carpio in the activities.
Taguba later changed his tune and cleared Paolo Duterte and Carpio. Trillanes’ panel failed to compel Paolo to take off his shirt and prove he has no triad dragon tattoo. Sen. Bong Go took off his shirt in public to show that he has no such tattoo, upping the pressure on Duterte (whether deliberately or inadvertently on the part of Go is uncertain).
Perhaps sometime during the BBM administration, the public will get a glimpse of Paolo Duterte’s back tattoo.
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Davao City has already lost at least P500 million (according to the Dutertes) in national budget allocations under the current administration (apart from the P650 million in secret funds withheld by Congress from VP and education chief Sara Duterte).
Meanwhile, local government executives seen to be sympathetic to the Dutertes are also feeling the heat. Last April, Malacañang suspended Davao del Norte Gov. Edwin Jubahib for 60 days in connection with a case for grave abuse of authority and oppression filed by a provincial board member.
Davao del Norte First District Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez said Jubahib was suspended after he rejected a request from Malacañang to call off a Duterte-led rally in Tagum City.
Alvarez himself now faces a House ethics probe for calling on the Armed Forces to withdraw support for President Marcos, for alleged “habitual absences” as congressman and for supposedly making libelous statements against fellow public officials in Davao del Norte.
The Duterte camp has also complained of difficulties in securing rally permits in Bustos, Bulacan, and in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental.
Administrative and criminal complaints are common for local government executives. The speed and gravity of action on the complaints tend to depend on an official’s standing in the current administration.
The latest to get a kick in the behind, courtesy of the Office of the Ombudsman, is Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama, who allowed the “prayer rally” in the city last Feb. 25 attended by Duterte and sons.
That rally saw Duterte toning down his diatribe against President Marcos, after cursing and calling BBM a drug addict in another rally on Jan. 28 in Davao City.
Rama was the only Cebu mayor who attended the rally at the South Road Properties in Cebu. For this he received praise from Duterte, and is expected to get the clan’s support in his reelection bid in 2025.
The suspended mayor has not mentioned the rally, but lamented that issues against him have been politicized.
For non-partisans, the political warfare opens the doors for wrongdoing in public office to be exposed and penalized, as rivals hurl mud at each other.