Senator Grace Poe dared the Department of Information and Communications Technology on Thursday to prove it could properly utilize its sought-after confidential fund amounting to P300 million.

"With billions of pesos being lost to scams, there is indeed a pressing need to strengthen our countermeasures against scams and cybercriminals," said Poe, who chairs the Senate Committee on Public Services.

"But at the same time, we would need to study if DICT has the capability to even spend this budget," she added.

She made the statement a day after DICT Secretary Ivan John Uy said his office needs P300 million in confidential funds to combat online and text scammers, who continue to prey on Filipinos.

However, Poe, who authored the SIM Registration Act, expressed concern that the agency may not be able to "properly utilize" its requested fund, citing the dismal budget utilization of the agency for its 2022 budget of only 32.2 percent.

"Confidential funds were not consistently granted to DICT, but we will ask the Commission on Audit to discuss with us how the P1.2-billion in confidential funds was used in the past by the agency," she said.

The senator said she also expects Uy to "be prepared to defend its necessity and commit to following the guidelines."

"As [the] recipient of the fourth highest confidential fund among all agencies, the burden is on the DICT to prove to us that this is needed," she said.
"Only then will we decide to recommend its budget request to the plenary," she added.

Signed into law last year, the SIM Registration Act seeks to stop the rampant scams through text messages that have become more prevalent post-pandemic.