CEBU CITY – The National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) led by its president and CEO Anthony Almeda and the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) director general retired police Lt/Gen. Ricardo de Leon signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on March 13 in Malacanang Palace to reinforce efforts and enhance the safety and security of the transmission assets operated and maintained by NGCP across the country.
“NGCP has dealt with sabotage and bombing incidents in the past years which affected not only the reliable delivery of power in the areas affected, but other incidents also resulted in the injury of transmission line personnel and military escorts patrolling the areas to conduct line clearing and maintenance activities,” NGCP said.
In the MOU, NICA commits to supply NGCP with intelligence information to support the protection of power transmission assets while NGCP commits to provide technical assistance to NICA to support and further establish their cybersecurity capability.
President Marcos, in his speech said that since NGCP is a critical part of the country’s security, it is a must to make more robust the defenses against any possible attacks on the power systems, on any other elements in everyday lives that require power, and for that matter, that require the exchange of secure information amongst ourselves in society.
“I thank the NGCP for taking the initiative here. There have been fears that the involvement of any foreign entity in our power transmission system would present a security threat to the Philippines. This is a very good step towards answering that challenge.,” the President added.
According to President Marcos, the country continues to protect the power transmission system and to develop cybersecurity so that security is assured and the data needed to collect and disseminate are readily available, and that “we are able to do and handle the data in a secure fashion without the risk of it being used somehow against the Philippines.
He added that it is important that the Philippines remains secure and in accordance with international law, that the Philippines and its people can rest assured that their territory, their data, their personal information will not be used against them, and that they can feel secure.
The MOU Signing was also witnessed by
Department of National Defense Officer-in-Charge Senior Undersecretary Carlito
Galvez, Jr., and representatives from the National Security Council and the
Department of Energy. (Photos: NGCP/FB)
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