Carpio on deal to build DITO facilities in military camps: We have to be very careful

Retired Supreme Court (SC) senior associate justice Antonio Carpio on Friday said the Philippines must be "very careful" in connection with telco player DITO Telecommunity Corp.'s deal with the Armed Forces to put up facilities in military camps.

Carpio raised security concerns in the context of China's incursions in the West Philippine Sea, a problem that he said the Philippines does not have with other telco companies like PLDT and Globe.

"This is unique to DITO and China Tel so we have to be very careful because we are fighting to preserve our territory and maritime zones in the West Philippine Sea and China is encroaching on our territory and maritime zones," he said at a virtual forum hosted by the Philippine Bar Association.

DITO is partly owned by the state-owned China Telecom.

Carpio said China has a law stating that any Chinese citizen or corporation must cooperate with the country's state intelligence services.

The retired justice is a leading expert on and advocate for the Philippines' maritime entitlements.

He previously said allowing DITO to build cell sites in military camps will be like China placing a "listening device" in the AFP's conference room. He reportedly said he believes it was "very dumb" for the Philippines to allow this.

DITO has said it is spending P1 billion for its cybersecurity initiatives amid concerns of espionage in relation to its co-location of cell sites with the Philippine military.

The company said it has tapped top-tier US cybersecurity firms such as Fortinet, NexusGuard, McAfee, Nessus, Veritas, Pentaho Data, IDAM Systems by BeyondTrust, Microsoft, Cisco ISE, Siemplify, ManageEngine, and SolarWinds for its planned cybersecurity center.

“From the beginning, we in DITO have taken note of all the concerns related to cybersecurity. We never made it public but we sought the best that the US had to offer in terms of cybersecurity,”  DITO chief technology officer Rodolfo Santiago said Thursday.