WATCH! Sen Recto questions DILG's China funded community surveillance project for Manila and Davao

Are China-funded projects off the Philippine government’s budget books?

 
Last night, December 11, 2018, during Senate plenary deliberations for the 2019 DILG budget, Senator Ralph Recto interpellated Senator JV Ejercito (sponsor of the proposed 2019 budget of the Department of Interior and Local Government) on the first phase of the PhP 20-billion Safe Philippines Project, a China-funded project to set-up 12,000 state-of-the-art, AI-powered CCTV cameras in Metro Manila and Davao.
 
The commercial contract was reportedly signed by DILG Secretary Eduardo Año and Chairman Yang Jie of China Telecom during Chinese President’s Xi Jingping’s recent state visit. However, there are questions as regards possible risks in setting up critical security infrastructure in the Philippines in partnership with a Chinese state-owned corporation. While it is still too early to tell (and too little details have been made public), some might wonder how close this technology is to China's controversial initiative to set up a "social credit system" using a complex network of surveillance equipment. 
 
Unusually, the project is also part of the "unprogrammed fund" for the 2019 budget on grounds of it being a China-funded project. This is despite the Safe Philippines project's not being listed among the outstanding loans and grants in the Department of Budget and Management's budget accounts, even as it was approved by the board of National Economic and Development Authority (the only requirement for green-lighting ODA projects) on ad referendum basis last January 2018. 
 
Why is a China-assisted project of the DILG not listed in DBM's list of active loans and grants? How pervasive are such exemptions among China- and foreign-assisted projects of the Philippine government? How will these exemptions affect the public’s ability to access detailed information about them?
 
Even as the Ateneo Policy Center continues to follow such developments in projects such as the Safe Philippines Project, demanding full disclosure and public oversight of the details of foreign-funded projects should be a call shared by all Filipinos. As our previous research has pointed out, major accountability deficits remain in the government’s dealings with foreign loans.

(The Ateneo Policy Center thanks its sources for clarifications on the status of the Safe Philippines Project

Watch the video highlights here: 

https://youtu.be/Pwr7TlsgOgQ