ANTIQUE – The Antique Provincial Police Office (APPO) will establish a cybercrime desk that would provide easier access and attend to cybercrime complaints in the province.
Police Colonel Lea Rose Peña, APPO director, said they target to operationalize by the first week of September this year.
“The establishment of the cybercrime desk will no longer necessitate Antiqueños to go to the Regional Anti-Cybercrime Unit 6 (RACU6) in Iloilo City to file their complaints, but that they could already do it right within the province,” she said during the third quarter meeting of the Provincial Joint Anti-Bank Robbery and Cybercrime Coordinating Committee (JABRACCC) at the APPO headquarters in San Jose de Buenavista on August 5.
She said the police have to take the call to action against the crimes being committed at the digital battlefield, although no cybercrime complaint was filed in Antique during the second quarter of this year.
Meanwhile, RACU-6 Operation Section Chief, Lieutenant Arthvic Velasquez, said cyber financial crimes have become the most prevalent, although the cybercrime volume during the second quarter of 2025 reduced by 25 percent.
During the period, they logged 57 cases compared with 76 cases in the same quarter in 2024.
“The total monetary value involved in the cyber financial crimes has reached P2,594,562 as of the second quarter of 2025,” Velasquez said.
Velasquez said the amount had been sent through the bank or money remittance by the victim of an investment or job scam, online lending or selling, and social engineering in the form of phishing, smishing and vishing.
Velasquez said one of their latest significant accomplishments was the arrest of a 27-year-old male in Iloilo City for violations of the Republic Act 11934, or the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Registration Act, and Republic Act 10175, also known as the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. (PNA)
