SENATE President Vicente C. Sotto III confirmed on Tuesday an upcoming inquiry by senators into the government’s P20-billion deal with a China-based telecommunications company to install closed-circuit television (CCTV) security cameras in Metro Manila and Davao City’s public areas.
The Senate leader indicated that Resolution 978 filed by detained Sen. Leila M. de Lima seeking scrutiny of the CCTV project will be promptly referred for committee hearings when regular sessions resume on January 14.
“The Public Services Committee,” Sotto told the BusinessMirror, referring to the panel chaired by Sen. Grace Poe, when asked if Resolution 978 will first be referred to the Rules committee to determine which committee will spearhead the Senate review of the CCTV project.
De Lima sought the inquiry to enable senators look into the details of the China loan agreement intended to bankroll installation of an “initial” 12,000 CCTV cameras in Metropolitan Manila and President Duterte’s Davao bailiwick.
Specifically, de Lima’s Resolution 978 seeks Senate scrutiny of the P20-billion loan deal forged by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the China International Telecommunications and Construction Corp. (CITCC).
For his part, however, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III said he will not support an inquiry into the project if it simply on account of its being awarded to a Chinese firm. “I am not allergic to the Chinese. And I don’t just follow the examples and actions of the western powers.”
However, Pimentel quickly added he would support calls to check the project for any possible irregularity. “I join the call to be vigilant about how we spend the people’s money. All projects must have a sensible purpose and must be reasonably priced. There should be no corruption in all government expenditures.”
National security
ACCORDING to de Lima, a former justice secretary, “any agreement that could compromise the rights of our citizens and our national security must first pass through strict scrutiny to ensure that it would not be violative of our Constitution.”
She said senators would be keen to know the China deal’s details to also confirm concerns that the CCTV project forged with a State-owned Chinese telco firm “would infringe on the constitutionally guaranteed right of privacy of the Filipino public and our country’s national security.”
The senator stressed that the inquiry was prompted by public interest which, she said, “requires that an inquiry be made as to the threats to the Philippines’s national security contract entered into with foreign companies whose questionable track-record raises international concern.”
De Lima’s resolution asserts that “the right of the people to privacy necessitates that an inquiry be made into the information sought to be collected through surveillance using equipment sourced from these Chinese companies.”
She noted that the P20-billion loan agreement for the installation of an initial 12,000 CCTV security cameras in just 30 months was “one of the 29 agreements signed during the state visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping last November 20.”
The CCTV security cameras are to be installed in crossings, roads, public plazas, business districts, science and technology parks, residential areas and stadiums, among others, with a national command center to be in Clark, Pampanga.
According to de Lima, the DILG-CITCC contract also provides that Huawei, the Chinese multinational telecommunication equipment and consumer electronics company, will supply the equipment requirements of the multibillion-peso project.
In a statement, de Lima asserted that at least five countries —Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and United States—have “doubted the integrity of Huawei-provided technology as they cited serious national security concerns.”
De Lima added: “Granting China, a country fast gaining international notoriety for its aggressive espionage activities, the opportunity to create a surveillance system in our country should raise a red flag for our policy-makers to ensure that none of our national interests are compromised by such agreements, particularly our national security.”
She noted reports that Australia was “also preparing to ban Huawei from supplying equipment after its intelligence agencies raised concerns that Beijing could force the Chinese telco to hand over sensitive data.”
De Lima likewise cited the warning of US Intelligence agencies against the use of smartphones made by Huawei on the ground that the Chinese telco has the capacity to maliciously modify or steal information, and even to conduct undetected espionage. “It is not a mere question of getting technological capability to enforce our laws but also of what we are giving up in exchange for this technology, notably giving a foreign government access to information from our country and our citizens,” de Lima said.
At the same time, she said the upcoming Senate inquiry must “determine the extent of these Chinese firms’ access to information relating to classified information, national security and defense, military and diplomatic secrets, and other confidential or sensitive matters.”