Philippine ambassador to the United States Jose Manuel Romualdez has always had a lot on his plate. When he was envoy under former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s administration, it meant keeping bilateral ties healthy, even as the Davao mayor unabashedly lashed out against the US, including former president Barack Obama.
As the second Donald Trump administration settles in, it’s meant periods of “anxiety” as he — and everyone else in the world, really — figure out what the barrage of orders and issuances from the White House mean.
And then there’s another thing Ambassador Romualdez has had to worry about: China’s attempts at hacking his phone. “[It’s about] extracted information. My phone has been tapped a number of times already,” Romualdez, who has held the post since 2017, said in a Rappler Talk interview.
“We just try to do our best. I guess we can’t use our phone the way we normally would like to. I changed my phone several times,” he added.
Romualdez had also mentioned the phone tapping in a forum at a university in the United States. “And as I said, I kidded the Chinese ambassador in the Philippines [and] I said, you have to stop doing this because I can’t afford to keep on buying a new phone,” he added.
Romualdez, recalling his conversation with Chinese ambassador to the Philippines Huang Xilian, said the latter just “laughed it off.”
“But you know, it is serious, [these] things. Cyber security is a major problem right now in the Philippines. I guess it’s just something that we have to just have to live with for now but we have to fight back. We cannot allow this to just go unchecked,” added Romualdez.
Philippine security — especially from foreign interference, malign influence, and attempts at espionage — has made headlines early in 2025.
In January alone, Philippine law enforcement officials announced to the public the arrest of Chinese nationals accused of spying in the island of Luzon and Palawan, an island facing the West Philippine Sea.
The National Security Council has called for an expansion and update of the Commonwealth-era espionage law in the Philippines, as well as the passage of laws that would monitor foreign agents of influence while in the Philippines. – Rappler.com