SENATORS took turns grilling Department of National Defense officials Monday on various issues bugging the DND, including the controversial deal allowing a company minority-owned by a state corporation of China to put up telco towers inside military camps, feared to be used as “listening posts” for intelligence gathering.
Senators Risa Hontiveros and Ramon Revilla Jr. raised lingering issues involving China’s Dito Telco towers to be installed in AFP camps.
Hontiveros recalled that Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana had confirmed to members of the House of Representatives that he recently signed an agreement allowing the new telecommunication player to install cell towers within camps “similar to mobile service providers Smart and Globe.”
Hontiveros noted, partly in Filipino, that, “of course Mr. Chair, Smart and Globe are not seizing our islands in the West Philippine Sea. They are not constructing artificial islands and they are not bullying our fishermen there.”
She recalled that retired Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio also raised concerns that China was “putting up a listening device” inside the Philippines’s premises, noting that “the East Asian giant has the capability to install spy software and applications through the towers.”
Hontiveros also requested that the Senate be provided a “copy of the AFP’s agreement with Dito as well as its existing agreements with Globe and Smart, for purposes of comparison and contrast.”
For his part, Lorenzana clarified that, in the first place, China is not the one putting up a telco tower inside the military camp. “Dito is a Philippine company. A Chinese company is just an investor there, 40 percent,” Lorenzana said.
The defense chief assured senators that they conducted studies on their own and found out that Smart and Globe are also using Huawei, the Chinese technology giant. “The posts they are using in their networks are all from Huawei, 100 percent in the case of Globe or Smart,” Lorenzana pointed out, partly in Filipino.
“So, what is the difference between them and Dito? If the equipment being used are both Chinese? We single out Dito, but not the other two, just because there is an investor there that is Chinese? I think it’s immaterial if the investor there is Chinese or not, because if you are using Chinese systems anyway, they may also have the capabilities to listen…install listening devices in their equipment,” he added.
Lorenzana further assured the panel: “So, Mr. Chairman, our security people in the Armed Forces of the Philippines studied this well, and they called in experts, and it is very difficult actually for this company to eavesdrop on the security operations of the AFP all over the country.”
Nonetheless, Lorenzana promised to “submit the MOA to the Senate, Mr. Chairman.”
Cyber attacks
At the same time, Lorenzana said the Duterte administration has set aside P500 million in the defense budget for 2021 to counter any cyberattacks that will threaten the country.
Asked by Hontiveros if the multimillion funding for cybersecurity included long-range drones, Lorenzana replied there was no need to do so, as the government already acquired drones that were recently delivered, adding: “our people are examining them now, and maybe very shortly we will be using them all over the country, including the West Philippine Sea.”
The infrared drones acquired from Israel were worth P4 billion, he added.
“This P500 million that we are allocating for 2021 are only software and hardware for cybersecurity, Mr. Chairman,” Lorenzana told the committee, adding that “we are actually now capable of developing drones, only the small ones; their loiter time in the air is about 30 minutes to 1 hour, but we have not yet acquired the technology that will carry the bigger cameras and can loiter around in the sky for about 24 hours. That capability is foreign, but if we can bring in the technology, I think our scientists and engineers are capable to develop or make these drones.”