THE Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC), the government agency tasked with the formulation and enforcement of the national cybersecurity plan, has a sticky problem — three of every four employee, or 76.55 percent to be exact, are serving on a limited period.
According to the 2022 audit report on the agency, it had 226 total personnel as of year-end 2022 of which 173 were hired on a contract-of-service (COS) basis.
Out of the 173, government auditors noted that 96 are detailed in sensitive sections of the CICC.
“The bulk of this COS was employed by the Intelligence Processing Division (IPD), Administrative Division (AD), and Digital Analytics Division (DAD),” the audit team said.
A verification of the roster showed 46 COS were assigned with the IPD, 33 in the AD, and 17 with the DAD.
There were also 11 in the Finance Division, nine with the Investigation Division, and nine more assigned at the Office of the Executive Director.
By its structure, the 11-year-old agency under the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), has a nerve center — the Cybercrime Investigation Office (CIO) — which serves as the primary operational unit according to the function chart approved by the Department of Budget and Management in 2017.
“The CIO performs cybercrime investigations, cyber intelligence, digital forensics, and other related processes. However, this office only has 10 plantilla positions with 59 personnel hired as COS, renewable every year,” the Commission on Audit said.
Starting from only 54 complaints received in 2020, the CIO reported that it has received 3,759 complaints as of September 2022 — an increase of 6,861 percent.
“However, the current set-up of the Center is that these complex and confidential works were being delegated to COS personnel. The hiring of COS personnel to perform and to be delegated with some important functions puts the Center in a vulnerable position since these COS personnel have no employer-employee relations… thus the continuity of their services is not guaranteed,” the COA added.
The COA report also showed that the agency incurred P50,000 confidential expenses in 2021, and zero in 2022.
The CICC management acknowledged the audit observations and agreed to “refrain from delegating COS personnel to functions that are part of the job description of regular employees.”
Likewise, the head of the Human Resource Section said there will be an assessment of their plantilla items so that, if found insufficient, a request can be made with the DBM to approve additional positions.
It likewise said it is working on a reorganization to acquire top talents from the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math as well as relevant professions in accounting, law, and behavioral sciences.
