President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. tells Filipinos to be more aware of investment scams to prevent them from becoming victims.

“My advice to the public is that when you receive a message and there is a deal being presented, and it sounds too good to be true, it is. There is no such thing as 100 percent risk-free, there is no way to guarantee these enormous returns on the money that they are claiming in the money that you give them,” Marcos said at a press conference.

“Our best defense is a knowledgeable consumer who can see for themselves that those legitimate offers or let’s say promotional offers as opposed to scams,” he said.

Marcos said the country has to improve its technology to combat investment scams.

“Well, we have to continue strengthening our capabilities when it comes to this. This is not a problem that is exclusive to the Philippines alone. And that is the danger that people are starting to use AI. People are starting to use all the new, very powerful tools that are available that we use in social media or the internet in general,” he told reporters.

‘It is really an arms race. Every defense or every capability that we develop to block or to catch or nullify this kind of transaction. Of course, they come up with new technology, with new techniques. So the only thing we can do is we continue to monitor very closely and do all that we can,” he added.

Marcos believes that the recently-passed Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) Card Registration law helped in disposing of unregistered SIM cards that are used for scams and illegal purposes.

He said that individuals found guilty of being scammers will be punished to the full extent of the law.

“The best that we can do, there are certain instances, especially when they're very large-scale that we can find exactly where it's coming from. But again, it's very movable. These are not offices, corporate offices in a big building…That’s the trouble that we are finding now,” Marcos said.

“Of course, should anyone be found guilty of promoting such scams, then the full force of the law will come into play,” he added. Jaspearl Tan/DMS