Transcript of Interpellation Senator Risa Hontiveros during the Commission on Appointments hearing for DICT Sec. Ivan John Uy

Senator Risa Hontiveros (SRH): On the Supreme Court resignation or termination. In 2005, the Secretary abruptly resigned as Deputy Clerk of Court for Information Technology of the Supreme Court. This was according to our CAPIR reportedly due to anomalies discovered by Justice Antonio T. Carpio. Other information indicates you were made to resign by Chief Justice Hilario G. Davide, Jr. himself, after an investigation.

On your part, the Secretary stated the report was a demolition job, stating that it was spread by people hurt by your reforms. Just to clear everything up, what was the reason for your abrupt resignation in 2005? Was this really related to Supreme Court insiders hurt by the reforms you were implementing, and if so what was the nature of these reforms?

Atty. Ivan Uy (UY) : Thank you Madam Chair for the opportunity to respond to that allegation. Actually, my resignation was not abrupt po. Chief Justice Davide already knew way ahead of time upon his assumption as the Chief Justice that I will only stay during his term mainly because he actually requested me to stay on because he had a lot of judicial reform initiatives that he wanted to push through. He asked me to stay on in order to help and bring in fruition his vision of a reformed judiciary that is transparent, that is efficient and during the process of course in improving transparency there will always be resistance to change and resistance to reform, and I expect no less in my current capacity as DICT secretary there will be resistance from people when we implement these reforms especially if we want to improve transparency in governance. So, Chief Justice Davide was already aware of my intention and in fact I tendered my resignation about I think 6 months prior to his retirement in order to give him or allow him some time to look for a replacement but he amended my resignation date and told me that I should resign on his last day on his las day of office cause he wanted me to be there up to his last day. The motivation for my resignation po is really the pay on the day of my resignation was 334,000 pesos pero annum, gross, at that time I got married in 2017 and in 2005 I already had 3 children and they were all starting to go to school, and 300,000 pesos a year was not enough po to raise 3 children especially if I want to send them to a good school that's not enough to pay for even the tuition of one child. And during that time po my father was actually subsidizing me and was encouraging me to leave government because government well his term was exploited my youth by dedicating my youth in serving the government, so because of that because of this financial circumstances I really planned to resign and in order for because there were already a lot of people disparaging me at that time po when I was still there so it would seem that the Chief Justice knew about this ahead of time, that's why he made sure that on my last day of office which was also the last day on his retirement he issued a commendation letter to me if I would be able to present the commendation letter po on my last day of work was signed by Chief Justice Davide, Jr. the outgoing Chief Justice, co-signed by the incoming Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban, so both of them I think this is a really rare document where the outgoing as well as the incoming Chief Justice would sign a commendation letter for services to the Supreme Court and I would more than happy to share with the Committee that commendation letter po.

SRH: Thank you Sec. Would the Chair like the Secretary to read his letter of commendation to the committee?

Mr. Secretary can you give us a copy and ask our secretary if you can read the letter of commendation from the Office of the president?

CA CHAIR: Chief Justices, Mr. Chair. So Secretary may you please furnish our commission secretary.

CA SEC: This is from the Supreme Court of the Philippines, the Supreme Court of the Philippines presents this certificate of commendation to Atty. Ivan John E. Uy for exhibiting a high sense of professionalism and dedication during the international conference showcase on judicial reforms held last 28 to 30 November 2005 at the Makati Shangri-La hotel Philippines with the theme strengthening the judiciaries of the 21st Century by actively supporting the showcase of the judiciaries reform projects under the action program for judicial reform APJR and attending to the needs not only of the local participants but also fo the 127 men and women from the 45 countries who attended the conference and by working beyond the call of public duty and contributing to the positive image of the Philippine judiciary thereby demonstrating its capability of hosting an international judicial conference of such magnitude given this 20th day of December in the year of 2005 in the pan pacific hotel manila philippines its signed by Chief justice hilario g davide, jr. and artemio b panganiban justice of the supreme court and chairperson international conference and showcase of judicial reforms.

SRH: Thank you Secretary Mr Chair... moving on to the Passive Telecommunications Tower Infrastructure. Sometime in June 2020, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) issued the guidelines for the sharing of cell towers under the Passive Telecommunications Tower Infrastructure (PTTI) Policy. This policy aims to widen the base of common towers and, thus, speed up the deployment of the internet across the country by allowing and encouraging telcos and Internet service providers to share cell towers.

It has been said that this "common tower" regime will also aid the rollout of the country's third mobile player, Dennis A' Uy's DITO Telecommunity, which is backed by China Telecom.

Anent to these matters, last September 2020, I filed a resolution to look into the installation of cell towers inside our military camps which stemmed from a MOA executed between DITO/China Telecoms and the AFP. 1:31:44

Some commentators have expressed the opinion that these cell towers within our military bases are potential national security threats, especially since China Telecom - which is a state-owned company - can, under Chinese law, be compelled to support intelligence gathering activities.

As part of its mandate, the DICT is tasked with formulating a national cybersecurity plan consisting of robust and coherent strategies to minimize national security risks in order to promote a peaceful, secure, open and cooperative ICT environment.

Mr. Secretary, you are a noted expert on information and communications technology, what urgent measures do you plan to implement in the next say six months to enhance our cybersecurity preparedness and ensure that the aforementioned risks are minimized?

UY: It is a very relevant issue today as we see worldwide, cybersecurity and cyberwarfare actually is the name of the game and we see it even as we speak during the war in Ukraine and Russia in fact 2 other countries suffered cyberattacks in Europe in the past few months that's the country of Albania and Montenegro and in both instances the cyberinfrastructure collapsed. So this is the primary concerns of our agency in building our cybersecurity as well as our cyber defense capability we not only have to secure against organized cyber criminals but we have to prepare state sponsored cyberattacks and we need to be aware of our current cybersecurity situation which would need to be addressed rapidly and in a scale that has never been done in the past and that's where we actually appeal to congress to provide us with the means to do so, sadly our cybersecurity budget was cut in half for this year and we do not have any funds at all to acquire cybersecurity equipment in order to protect our digital infrastructure and we earnestly appeal that we have the capability we have the people we have the desire to do it but congress has to give us the ammunition the arms so we can fight for our country. That is our urgent appeal. We are already launching several cybersecurity initiatives. FIrst is we are preparing the cybersecurity national cybersecurity framework, and the national cybersecurity plan for 2023 to 2028 and we expect this to be released in mid of next year but at the same time without waiting for that framework to come out, we are in constant meetings with out cybersecurity agencies, not only just the cyber law enforcement agencies like the NBI and the PNP, but as well as the AFP, the department of national defense, the NSA, NICA in order to build up our cybersecurity capabilities po. At the same time we are very active in participating in the joint cybersecurity working group that is actually organized by our treaty all the United States 1:36:31 me personally I have been a member for that for more than a decade and we meet regularly at least once a month in order to assess cybersecurity issues and cybersecurity threats, the landscape that's out there, what are the vectors and the payloads and the vulnerabilities that cyberthreat actors employ in order to bring down systems and critical infrastructures there's a lot of sharing of disinformation and a lot of capacity building and assistance among our allies. And this is one of our priority areas, we just need ammunition to deal with it more extensively.

SRH: Im glad to hear the Secretary confirming na tinatrabaho niyo na yung isang national cybersecurity framework bukod pa sa mas specific na plan and to also hear about different elements that could constitute parts of that robust and coherent strategies, elements na ngayon pa lang ay ginagawa niyo na. in addition to preparing the framework and the plan, sabi niyo by mid 2023, I hope congress but our houses can hear about it by then ang inyong constant meetings with the agencies and joint cybersecurity exercises. you mentioned just the US, I hope sec you are also in similar processes with for example ASEAN even the Quad at yung iba pang mga bansa concerned sa cybersecurity of our region and the whole world. I hear your appeal, Congress hears your appeal about the budget and hopefully year on year your department can advice us paano mas maayos mapopondohan ang implemnation ng inyong ating national cybersecurity plan until 2028. Last follow up question. Talking about competition in the telecommunications industry. Has DITO been able to comply with the commitments it made as part of its winning bid, and is the DICT contemplating allowing a 4th, 5th, and 6th players to enter the market?

UY: Actually based on the latest submissions of Dito, and based on their submissions to the NTC they have so far been able to deliver on the contractual obligations up to this date. They're up to speed of the delivery of the necessary highlights of their contract. With respect to a 4th or 5th provider, we would probably want to assess first how successful this 3rd Telco is before we even explore that capacity. In some other jurisdictions po, I think there is room for more competition however considering our demographics and our geographical status being an archipelago, the huge investment tin bridging the different islands through all these fiber submarine cables and fiber optic cables probably would not be conducive to too much competition because it will no longer make the telcos financially viable with that kind of huge investment. What we want is that all the telcos will survive and will be active players in a very competitive market and so far for now 3 telcos it would seem would be enough to drive the competition actually mada chair we're not limited to 3 telcos, because of the move to digitalize the other i wouldnt call them pseudo-telcos but other data providers like satellite providers like Starlink and cable providers like cable tv or converge the fiber optic providers all of them are being rolled out and communications is no longer limited to mobile phones, we can communicate through VIOP viber messenger and so on, so i think that creates a very robust and healthy environment for communications and if telcos do not really provide satisfatory serices because the public will jstu move to VIOP, viber and to all the others where data can carry voice. So that puts pressure on them to improve their services and lower their costs that is our perspective on that madam chair. thank you.

SRH: Is DICT considering radiofrequency reform or an auction?

UY: Radiofrequency especially on the spectrum side po will be on the national telecommunications commission as the regulatory agency but we do use radiofrqeuency for internet protocol and we extensively use that in our recent set up in Sapol island in zamboanga this is a very remote island down south we use IP radios to connect 36km across the sea to this remote island that is only accessible by bangka or 2 hours in order to reach that island and that island has never had any internet connectivity ever po, ever. So when we lighted up the island with 12,000 inhabitants we could see the joy the sheer delight its a very emotional moment when you actually see them get connected and their realization that they no longer have to pay 200 pesos each time to travel by boat 2 hours boat to Zamboanga city in order to talk to their loved ones in order to apply for whatever permits or whatever is required by government because they can now do it online from their barangays in that remote island. And that is the vision I have that we do this all over the country and bring our countrymen together as one Philippines one digital philippines. Maraming salamat po.

SRH: Salamat, Sec, Mr. Chair. The SIM Card Registration Act aims to provide accountability for those using SIM cards and aid law enforcement in tracking perpetrators of crimes committed through phones. On the other hand, a UK-based charity, Privacy International, which had been tracking SIM card registration laws all over the world - said that such laws are often defended on the flawed assumption that they help fight crime.

A 2016 GSMA report states there is no empirical evidence that mandatory SIM registration directly leads to a reduction in crime. The practice has been exposed as ineffective and inefficient in some countries that have adopted its use. 1:45:20

Do you agree with these assessments and what is the current status of the implementation of this law?

UY: The sim card registration law is a good law it actually, there is no magic pill so to speak in addressing criminality. Despite legislation that will penalize increasing the penalty, broadening the coverage and so on, empowering the law enforcers, there will still be crime that will be committed and that's the same thing goes with cybercrime so long as cyber threat actors out there, and so long as there's money to be made in cybercrime then they will be those personalities that will actively do these criminal acts. The sim card registration law is a step in the right direction because although it does not completely address cybercrime, it clips their wings from one modality which is a very frustrating and irritating modality. All of us, our countrymen po, as the honorable chair has mentioned, our countrymen actually are consistently baraged by all these text scams, all these fraud and ang hinaing po ng publiko is to put a stop to his once and for all and once na naregister ang sim card mahihirapan po itong mga sindikato, na gamitin ito. Maaari silang humanap ng ibang paraan, at hindi ko idadillvuge dito ano pa yung mga ibang paraan dyan, pero at least etong modality po na gamitin nila itong sim card ay mapuputol po natin at yan po ay isang magandang panukala at suportahan po natin yon. Thank you po.

SRH: Salamat din. Actually some have given us feedback after we passed the law, expressed the concern that there are penal provisions for violations of this law which people would not understand once ma-enforce na siya. I guess the government as a whole needs to do a better job of communicating and explaining the law well and fully.

Just to my last question and again, salamat sa mga colleagues ko sina Sen Nancy and Sen JV who are asking we hear the important answers of the Secretary to all our questions. Salamat, salamat po.

To my last question, nabanggit nyo kanina yung NTC. And my last question is an NTC question. On June 8, 2022, the NTC ordered internet service providers to block 27 websites of news organizations for allegedly being affiliated to and supporting terrorists and terrorist organizations. This move was in response to a letter request of Hermogenes C. Esperon, Jr. and the National Security Council terror-tagging these websites.

After the RTC issued an injunction against the NTC on August 11, 2022 to unblock some of these websites, the NTC defied, and continued to defy, the Writ of Preliminary Injunction. It was only a day after a case for indirect contempt was filed against NTC that these sites were finally unblocked. So for my last question for this morning, why did it take so long for the NTC to have refused to obey a lawful order of the Court, and how do we avoid this problem from occurring again?

UY: Actually that incident happened before our term and it is an act of an attached agency of the DICT. Currently, I think there is still no commissioner at NTC but with all due respect, I think, they would be the ones who would be the proper entity that could actually answer whether why they were not able to implement it immediately in order of the court we are all agents of the court and we are obliged to comply with lawful orders issued. Thank you.

SRH: Thank you for affirming that lawyers are all agents of the court and obliged to obey the orders of the court. I understand hindi nyo pa po time noong panahong iyon however I was seeking to pick the brain of the institutional memory dahil attached agency naman ng DICT ang NTC, at least moving forward, how do we avoid such a problem occurring again? If it occurs again? How do we avoid protracting it as happened before?

UY: There are proper legal processes that are put in place under the Rules of Court and under our laws in order to properly implement lawful orders and at the same time, we also need to be aware that there are also constitutional requirements on due process that has to be complied by all by everyone because these are constitutional impositions. I believe the legal mechanisms are there precisely in order to strike a balance between overreaching regulatory agencies and protection of some of the rights of the public whether these are rights to free speech or the rights to protection against unlawful seizure and a lawful arrest so far, our institutions are quite capable of fulfilling their respective mandates and we have separation of powers to indeed provide a very good balance between the three arms of the government. I think we need to be able to trust our system to be able to fulfill their respective mandates.

SRH: Thank you, and of course, justice is always earned and sustained, by the proper long term relationships. In addition sa sinabi ni Secretary about agents of the court and obligation vis-a-vis the court salamat doon sa affirmation niyo about free speech and protection against unlawful seizures and arrest as among the rights protected under our constitution and our laws. Finally, do I take it that if ever wag naman po sana but if ever a similar situation should arise, and the NTC blocked websites but following that the RTC issued an injunction and ordered the NTC to unblock such sites do I take it that based on what the secretary has replied so far, it should not take the NTC to be threatened by a case of for indirect contempt in order to simply obey the order of the court.

UY: True po the courts actually are the primarily adjudicators of these controversies and they are proper entities in order to determine the validity of certain rights or certain powers that are exercised by the government.

SRH: Salamat, I understand what you said and I thank you for your answers.

Follow up questions:

SRH: Perhaps like Rep. Johnny, this follow up question of mine is a matter of facts and a matter of respect to the Committee. I appreciate that our CA Sec read to all of us the certificate of commendation that the secretary provided us from the Supreme Court but I must state that a certificate of commendation is not a clearance. My office is now calling the Chief Administration of the Supreme Court in relation to my follow up question of course I would like to respectfully remind the secretary he is under oath. My follow up question is what is the nature of the commendation you received was it for your overall service to the court?

UY: It was in the judicial reform program that I have participated in that we pushed for changes in the judiciary introducing all the reforms that were led by the Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr.

SRH: Thank you. Actually it's even more specific than that. Sabi ko nga po kanina I appreciated that the CA Sec read this to us. Mas naintindihan ko upon reading the hard copy. It is a certificate of commendation to the Secretary, Atty Uy not for, not even for a whole program of judicial reforms but specifically for the international conference and showcase on judicial reforms. And the secretary earlier told us that it's rare that two chief justices, one outgoing, one incoming, would sign a certificate of commendation that would be true, that would be so if it were a certificate of commendation for an overall service to the court but upon reading now with my own eyes the hard copy with what was read to us earlier, indeed it was signed by the then outgoing chief justice and signed by the incoming chief justice as justice still but also as chairperson of the international conference and showcase on judicial reform. Just for the record, again, as I said, as a matter of facts and out of respect to the committee and to the whole commission, the actual nature of this certificate of commendation and my very last follow up question for this morning, did you obtain a clearance after your resignation?

UY: I don't recall any, it was 2005, I understand the clearance process takes a while so I don't recall any more details on that.

SRH: Well, I can imagine a clearance process will take a while, perhaps not 17 years, because it's been 17 years since 2005. I apologize, I just took off mic to ask if we have feedback already from SC admin. Unfortunately, I don't have feedback as of this time from the chief or admin of the Supreme Court, so I just would like to make it of record that the Secretary cannot recall if he obtained a clearance but surely, by now, 17 years later after that time, there should be an available fact from somewhere kung nakatanggap nga sila o hindi ng clearance after he resigned.