News
The Filipino government has said that Huawei will play a full part in the deployment of the country’s 5G network infrastructure
The Philippines has backed Chinese tech giant Huawei to be involved in the country’s 5G rollout, saying that there is "no evidence" that the company’s network infrastructure is any less secure than that of its European rivals.
Allan Cabanlong, assistant secretary for Cybersecurity and Enabling Technologies of the Philippine Department of Information and Communications Technology said that all three of the Philippines’ telcos would be looking to involve Huawei in their 5G plans to some extent.
"Right now, there is no scientific evidence on Huawei conducting espionage in the Philippines," Cabanlong told journalists from GMA News.
"So, our stand in the Philippines (is that), we cannot block something that has no scientific evidence or engineering or IT process evidence … we cannot block Huawei from any network in the Philippines," he added.
"There’s no cause for alarm for Huawei as of now." Cabanlong said, adding that "We are conducting continuous due diligence. Detection is very important, if other countries see there is a threat they should have provided us with concrete evidence."
The Philippines has recently launched a third telco, Mislatel, to help speed up rollout of 5G in the country. Globe, Smart and Mislatel will all aim to deliver 5G network services by early 2020.
Also in the news:
Globe vows to crack down on cyber crime in the Philippines
"We will set our own standards" – Germany tells US to butt out of Europe’s 5G security
