The Gabriela Women’s Party (GWP) holds Globe accountable in its incompetency to protect the funds of the users of its e-wallet service, GCash. On November 11, the party, along with representatives from the Kabataan Partylist and ACT Teachers Partylist, filed a resolution to investigate the widespread unauthorized withdrawal of thousands of funds from random accounts.

This contradicts the company’s touted claim that users’ money is safe behind its security measures. It also runs counter to the mandatory SIM card registration law’s promise to secure electronic transactions.

Globe’s excuse is that the incident was merely a “glitch” in their product and that no money was actually lost. This is despite GCash users posting widespread complaints on social media about their funds being transferred to unknown numbers. Some have also reported that the numbers receiving the money were “unregistered.”

“We demand that GCash immediately return the stolen funds to the affected users and explain how this widespread unauthorized transaction occurred despite their so-called security measures,” GWP Representative Arlene Brosas said. This is unacceptable because many families rely on their e-wallets for daily transactions and expenses.

“The SIM Card Registration Act should be scrapped. It has clearly failed to prevent scams and fraud,” she added. “Instead, it has made Filipinos more vulnerable to data breaches and jeopardized their hard-earned income.”

In response to the anomaly, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) admitted that they do not have the authority to investigate the “glitch” in Globe’s system.

“We in the government, particularly in the DICT, this is indeed our problem… We cannot check or access their systems because we do not have regulatory powers over them,” said an official from the department.

The GWP has called for stricter regulations to ensure that such issues do not recur with Globe’s services.