By Luz Wendy T. Noble, Reporter

ECONOMIC MANAGERS on Tuesday vowed to push economic recovery this year by keeping the coronavirus pandemic under control, ensuring fiscal prudence and shielding the economy from spillover risks.

“We will drive up domestic economic activity by proceeding full speed with our infrastructure program,” Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III told an online forum. “We are determined to maintain financial prudence and fiscal strength so we can face the future with a deep war chest.”

The government has released P660.5 billion to various agencies in the battle against the coronavirus, Budget Secretary Wendel A. Avisado said at the same forum organized by the Economic Journalists Association of the Philippines.

The agencies have identified specific projects for 82.2% or P542.64 billion of the total. He added that 89.8% or P487.19 billion have been spent on these projects.

Mr. Avisado said almost a trillion pesos out of the P4.5-trillion 2021 national budget covers programs against the pandemic, including medical assistance to poor patients.

Public works and transportation projects are also part of the government’s pandemic response since these generate jobs.

The government may borrow P3 trillion from domestic and overseas markets as it expects the budget deficit to hit 9.4% of economic output this year.

Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Karl Kendrick T. Chua said he expects the economy to have grown in the second quarter after more businesses reopened, from a 4.2% contraction a quarter earlier. Economic output shrank by a record 9.6% last year, the worst recession since World War II.

“The economic performance you see today is due to an artificial policy of restricting economic performance because of excessive risk aversion last year,” he told the forum. “That is why we are changing our objective on risk management.”

Mr. Chua has been pushing to reopen the economy to boost consumption.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte on Monday night relaxed the lockdown in Metro Manila for the rest of June, allowing more businesses to operate more freely amid easing coronavirus infections.

The capital region and nearby provinces were placed under a strict lockdown from March to April amid a fresh surge in infections.

Mr. Chua said economic pump priming would not do much if people’s mobility remains restricted.

Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin E. Diokno stressed the need to remain watchful of the pandemic’s toll amid divergent recoveries experienced by the world.

The government expects the economy to grow by 6-7% this year and by 7-9% in 2022. Multilateral agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have warned of risks to the country’s recovery including the virus surge, renewed lockdowns and the slow pace of vaccinations.

“We have to be ready for the possible spillover risks resulting from differentiated and divergent recoveries,” Mr. Diokno told the forum. “We need robust institutions and sustained policy discipline to see us through this COVID-19 fog.”

He said the central bank would keep watch of inflation concerns for their policy decisions, which would also support economic recovery

Inflation settled at 4.5% for the third straight month in May. While this was slower than the two-year high of 4.7% in February, it exceeded the central bank’s 2-4% target.

Food prices have risen during the health crisis, especially meat due to low supply. In response, the government raised the minimum access volume quota for pork imports and cut the tariff on pork imports for a year.

“The BSP will remain vigilant over the current inflation dynamics to ensure that the monetary policy stance continues to support economic recovery to the extent that the inflation outlook would allow,” Mr. Diokno said. “We will carefully scan the operating environment with a forward-looking perspective to move in preemptively to address any risks to our price stability mandate.”

Mr. Avisado said next year’s national budget would probably again take the pandemic into account.

The appropriations would prioritize funding for coronavirus booster shots, assistance to poor local governments, national ID integration, a proposed Virology Institute, family planning and nutrition, he added.

By Luz Wendy T. Noble, Reporter

PAMELA SAMIA, 54, lost P145,000 after an unauthorized withdrawal from her ATM account in January.

“You’d think your money is safe because it’s in a bank,” she said by telephone. “I wasn’t aware about the withdrawal until a week later because I don’t do online banking. I was also scared of being hacked if I went digital.”

Ms. Samia said she was planning to buy a lot where they would bury their mother’s ashes and donate the rest of the money to a hospital that took care of her when she got the coronavirus last year.

Those will have to wait.

The coronavirus pandemic has spurred increased spending at all levels of the global economy, from online shopping to trillions of dollars of stimulus packages. Criminals want a slice of the funds.

And with more and more people working from home, spam messages multiplied 220 times between February and March last year, while malicious URLs — links leading to malware downloads or scams — almost quadrupled, according to cybersecurity company Trend Micro.

Of the 20,000 consumer concerns received by the Philippine central bank last year, 13% were related to fraudulent, unauthorized transactions involving deposits, credit cards, e-money services and remittances. Most involved scammers, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said at a recent briefing.

Even powerful politicians are not exempted. In January, Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian discovered that his credit card had been used to buy about a million pesos worth of liquor through Foodpanda.

Mr. Gatchalian said UnionBank of the Philippines, Inc. had been very responsive since the fraud occurred. Based on the bank’s investigation, the culprit changed the senator’s contact number — used to approve credit card transactions — by calling the bank and pretending to be him.

“That’s the funny part, this was not IT-related at all,” he said by telephone. “This was just pure and simple fraud.”

“It’s difficult for people like us — public servants and public figures — because our information is scattered all over the internet,” the lawmaker said. “If you are resourceful enough, you’ll get my information — my middle name, which high school I attended and my telephone number.”

The senator reached out to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), while UnionBank tapped police to trace the culprit.

Jose Paolo G. Rufo, chief information security officer at UnionBank, said they regularly review policies and procedures to ensure their clients’ safety. Consumer should also practice due diligence and vigilance against cyber-criminals, he said in an e-mail.

“Our customers’ safety and security are our utmost priority, and we have invested heavily in measures that are designed to secure all of their online and mobile banking transactions, and to respond to cybersecurity incidents and fraud in the digital space,” Mr. Rufo said.

REINVENTED SCAMS
Users are more likely to trust technology today than a year ago, Trend Micro researcher Fernando Merces and spokeswoman Erin Johnson said in a report posted on the company’s website.

“Since the pandemic started, devices and apps have been integral tools for school, work, shopping and even staying connected with friends and family,” they said. “All aspects of life have become a little bit more digital.”

But criminals have adapted as well by going digital. “Scammers took advantage of the surge in online commerce and payments, and also heavily targeted businesses and buyers that were settling into new ways of transacting,” they said.

Victims across the world have lost millions to these reinvented scams in online shopping, food delivery and messaging apps, and government assistance.

Fake shops abound on online platform sellers Lazada and Shopee, many of them selling graphics cards and other high-value items that are in short supply at 80% discount. Many of them will try to contact you on Viber and ask you to make a 10% deposit in their bank accounts before shipping.

A major cyberattack could shake the banking system’s stability. S&P Global Ratings has flagged emerging risks to banks’ credit ratings due to cyberattacks once they cause financial losses and reputational damage.

“A BSP-supervised financial institution may assess its cybersecurity defense as robust, but they may instantly change due to the highly evolving cyberthreat landscape,” Mr. Diokno said at an online briefing. He urged banks to reassess their spending on cybersecurity as more users shift to digital transactions.

The central bank is backing House Bill 6768 or the Financial Products and Services Consumer Production Act, which congressmen passed on third and final reading as early as June last year. A counterpart Senate bill is pending at the committee level.

The measure allows regulators to award the financial claims of duped consumers. It also slaps fines, suspension and penalties on financial service providers that have failed to prevent credit card fraud.

The Bankers Association of the Philippines (BAP) said rising online transactions during the pandemic had opened opportunities for fraud.

“With the higher number of Filipinos resorting to online banking, the chances of getting victimized by cyber-fraud also rise,” it said in an advisory posted on its website. “More people are now easy prey to bank personnel impersonation via texts or e-mails.”

Consumers victimized by credit card fraud should contact their banks and product vendors and file a report to dispute the charges, BAP said. They may also seek a review of the charges within 20 days.

People should also change their personal identification numbers and passwords after an incident. Clients may also request for a new credit card or register for a new account if they feel unsafe, BAP said.

Identity or password thefts account for 80% of cyber-breaches, Cisco Philippines Managing Director Karrie C. Ilagan said. The work-from-home setup means people are using more gadgets and doing transactions in unsecured networks.

“The attack surface has grown exponentially with the expansion of remote workers, home networks and unsecured devices, and applications and workloads have become the new attack vector,” she said in an e-mail.

The Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) found that from March 16 to Aug. 31, 2020, cases such as skimming, phishing and unauthorized transactions made up 49% of suspicious transaction reports by covered institutions.

“Just as we have become alert in protecting our health from the virus, so too must we be alert in protecting our hard-earned money and personal information from fraud,” AMLC Executive Director Mel Georgie B. Racela said in a Viber message.

Unlike powerful politicians — Mr. Gatchalian was never charged P1 million — ordinary consumers are less protected. In May, Ms. Samia got a letter from the Malacañang branch of Land Bank of the Philippines denying her claim.

“Based on the investigation conducted by the bank, there is no compelling evidence that your account was exposed to fraud,” according to a copy of the letter. “In this respect, we regret to inform you that we cannot favorably act on your request for restitution.”

The government bank did not reply to an e-mail and text messages seeking comments.

Ms. Samia has appealed the ruling and wants to know who’s behind the scam. “I don’t care about the money anymore,” she said. “I just want to know who did it. What if they do it again?”