PRESIDENT Marcos Jr. has re-organized the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA), creating the offices of the Deputy Director General (ODDG) for Cyber and Emerging Threats and the Directorate for Cyberintelligence and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (DCCWMD).
The changes are aimed at strengthening the agency’s intelligence gathering and analysis and further ensure national security.
The President, through Executive Order No. 54 that was signed by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin on January 19, said there is a need to reorganize NICA “to adapt to the evolving threats to national security and ensure a more vigorous intelligence collection, intensify internal and external coordination with foreign and domestic counterparts, and prepare intelligence and security assessments and estimates using data analytics to ensure national security and promote national interest.”
The NICA, created through EO No. 246 (s. 1987), is the focal point for direction, coordination, and integration of government activities involving national intelligence, and the preparation of intelligence estimates of local and foreign situations for the formulation of national policies by the President.
Under EO 54, the President established the ODDG for Cyber and Emerging Threats to help provide direction to overall planning, supervision and coordination of the NICA on counter-intelligence and counter-measures against cybersecurity threats, weapons of mass destruction, and other emerging threats.
The ODDG shall be headed by a deputy director general with the rank of assistant secretary to be appointed by the President, and include the Directorate for Counterintelligence and Security (DCS) and Directorate for Cyber-intelligence and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (DCCWMD).
The newly created DCCWMD will be headed by an assistant director general, with the rank of Director IV, and shall be responsible for the NICA’s conduct of national cyberintelligence research using data analytics; and intelligence activities to counter chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, as well as emerging threats.
DCCWMD shall also lead the NICA’s internal response operations, security and safety assessment, network monitoring, and information and communications technology development and management; develop and manage the National Cyber Intelligence Network; and supervise the NICA’s Cybersecurity Desks in all Regional Offices.
The new EO takes effect immediately and the funding requirements for the implementation of the order will be charged against current and available appropriations of the NICA, subject to pertinent budgeting, accounting, and auditing laws, rules and regulations.
Future budget requirements for the continued implementation of EO 54 and the two offices created as a result of the issuance, shall be included in the future budget proposal of the NICA.
