The Rodrigo Duterte administration focused on the war on illegal drugs which it claimed had become a pervasive problem throughout the country. The result, as we know by now, has been the involvement even of law enforcers – from the highest to the lowest levels — in extrajudicial killings, as unearthed by the ongoing House Quad Committee hearings.
But the previous administration is now also being exposed as having encouraged the proliferation of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (Pogos) that lawmakers found are notorious for various online scams and other criminal activities, such as torture, kidnapping for ransom and murder.
In fact, online scammers have managed to swindle Filipinos of an estimated $8.1 billion, or nearly P460 billion, in the past year alone.
That’s the disturbing conclusion of a recent study by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (Gasa), a non-profit group.
Consider this: The estimated losses are equivalent to 1.9 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. On average, each Filipino victim lost $275, or about P16,000, to scammers, noted the study, titled “The State of Scams in the Philippines 2024.”
About 39 percent of surveyed Filipinos had lost money to scammers. Only 3 percent of the victims were able to recover their losses, while 78 percent tried but failed.
The study also found that 67 percent of the respondents had dealt with scams at least once every month. It also noted a rising trend as half of the respondents said they had encountered more scams in the past 12 months.
The study revealed that about 85 percent of the scams were delivered via text messages, which have risen by 10 percent since last year. Text scams usually trick unsuspecting victims into clicking suspicious website links by offering fake job opportunities and lottery winnings, among others.
The links lead to fake portals where users will be asked to input sensitive and personal information such as bank account details, phone number and address. From there, hackers can take over one’s bank and e-wallet accounts to steal money.
“Filipinos often fall for scams due to attractive offers, acting hastily, with many victims admitting uncertainty about the legitimacy of the offers but choosing to risk it anyway. Still, around 41 percent of the respondents said they double-checked the legitimacy of the links to avoid falling victim, especially if the offer was too good to be true.
“Scams in the Philippines have reached an alarming level,” the Gasa report concluded. It’s time, we think, for law enforcement agencies, as well as the internet service providers, to closely collaborate and come up with ways to deter scammers from taking advantage of the gullible and the naïve.
