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Republic of the Philippines 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
Quezon City 
TWENTIETH CONGRESS 
First Regular Session 
House Bill  No._____ 
Introduced by: Congressman BIENVENIDO M. ABANTE, JR. 
AN ACT 
REGULATING FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS 
EXPLANATORY NOTE 
On May 7, 2024, a certain mayor, Alice Guo of Bamban, Tarlac, was linked to 
Philippine Offshore Gaming Operator (Pogo) operations in her town — Hongsheng 
Gaming Technology Incorporated and Zun Yuan Technology Incorporated.  
Hongsheng was raided by the police in February 2023 and was replaced by Zun Yuan 
in the same location. It was then again raided in March 2024 for charges of alleged 
human trafficking and serious illegal detention. 
The mayor’s case escalated further amid even more damning accusations 
involving her supposed Chinese nationality.  If proven true, this is very alarming – a 
Chinese national was able to win an elective post in our country.  
The Chinese have been deepening their ties in the Philippines' critical 
infrastructure. Beyond the construction projects of transportation infrastructure, such 
as bridges, roads, and rail lines, Chinese companies have found a way to gain large 
shares in Filipino utility companies. Most notably, Chinese companies own a 40 
percent stake in both the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines (NGCP) and 
Dito Telecommunity. Both of these arrangements should cause concern as the Chinese 
companies are owned by the PRC and, by extension, the Chinese Communist Party 
(CCP).  
The NGCP is a consortium of three companies in charge of “operating, 
maintaining, and developing the country's state-owned power grid.” While two 
Filipino companies, Monte Oro Grid Resources Corporation and Calaca High Power 
Corporation, each own 30% of the NGCP, the remaining 40% is owned by the State 
Grid Corporation of China (SGCC).  
In 2008, NGCP secured a 50-year franchise from the Congress of the Philippines 
to manage the state power grid, focused on operating, maintaining, and developing 
transmission capabilities. NGCP maintains that SGCC's role remains one of "technical 
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partner," a caveat peculiarly placed throughout the company's website adjacent to any 
mention of SGCC.  
Despite this caveat, a leaked report in 2019 highlighted that through the SGCC, 
the Chinese government could theoretically shut down power throughout the 
Philippines' power grid “with a single switch,” requiring 24 to 48 hours to revert the 
grid to manual operations. Whether this is factual or just speculative paranoia remains 
unverified, but it is not a position where any country would desire to be.  
Equally troubling is the large Chinese interest in Dito Telecommunity, which 
is one of three companies providing broadband internet and cell service in the 
Philippines. Dito Telecommunity is another consortium comprised of the Udenna 
Corporation and its subsidiary, Chelsea Logistic Corporation (60 percent share, 
Philippines) and China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom, 40 percent 
share, China).  
In 2018, Dito Telecommunity won a bid to provide Filipinos with a third 5G 
broadband and cell network option to provide additional competition to a market 
dominated by PLDT-Smart and Globe. This is troubling as China Telecom reports 
directly to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, making it an 
extension of the Chinese government.  
An investigative report produced by Creator Tech, an Asia Pacific consulting 
firm, found that China Telecom reports intelligence directly to the PRC and describes 
itself as “a main force for building cyber power.” To top it all off, this transaction with 
a Chinese government-owned company holding a 40 percent share, signed a deal with 
the Armed Forces of the Philippines to provide internet connectivity at military 
installations. If control of the power grid is insufficient, China's telecommunications 
ventures on the islands generate an enormous espionage vulnerability.  
Another area of concern is the online application – TIKTOK – which has 
millions of subscribers in the country.  Lawmakers and regulators in the West have 
increasingly expressed concern that TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, may 
put sensitive user data, like location information, into the hands of the Chinese 
government. They have pointed to laws that allow the Chinese government to secretly 
demand data from Chinese companies and citizens for intelligence-gathering 
operations. 
China could therefore use TikTok’s content recommendations to fuel 
misinformation, a concern that has escalated in the United States and led to the 
passage of a law last year banning TikTok in the US.  
India did the same in 2020, costing ByteDance one of its biggest markets. The 
government there cracked down on hundreds of Chinese-owned apps, claiming in 
part that they were secretly transmitting users’ data to foreign servers. 


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Other countries and government bodies — including Britain and its Parliament, 
Australia, Canada, the executive arm of the European Union, France, and New 
Zealand’s Parliament — have banned TIKTOK from official devices. Taiwan’s 
minister of digital affairs recently declared TikTok a dangerous product representing 
a national security threat. 
This proposed legislation will authorize the President to determine any foreign 
country to be adversarial or a threat to our national security and thereafter prohibit 
any foreign adversary-controlled applications from operating in the country. 
This bill would prohibit foreign adversary-controlled applications from app 
stores operating in the Philippines and from “internet hosting services” in the country 
that support them. 
That would effectively restrict new downloads of these foreign adversary-
controlled applications and interaction with their content. The goal is to enable the 
Philippine government to prevent the use of these applications or any other modern 
technology or public utility from being used by foreign adversarial countries to 
threaten our national security and territorial integrity. 
In view of the foregoing, approval of this bill is earnestly sought. 
HON. BIENVENIDO M. ABANTE    


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Republic of the Philippines 
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
Quezon City 
TWENTIETH CONGRESS 
First Regular Session 
House Bill  No._____ 
Introduced by: Congressman BIENVENIDO M. ABANTE, JR. 
AN ACT 
REGULATING FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATIONS 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress 
assembled: 
SECTION 1. Short Title. - This Act may be cited as the “Foreign Adversary 
Controlled Applications Regulation Act”. 
SEC. 2. Definitions: 
(1) CONTROLLED BY A FOREIGN ADVERSARY.—The term “controlled by a
foreign adversary” means, with respect to a covered company or other entity,
that such company or other entity is—
(A) a foreign person that is domiciled in, is headquartered in, has its
principal place of business in, or is organized under the laws of a foreign
adversary country;
(B) an entity with respect to which a foreign person or combination of
foreign persons described in subparagraph (A) directly or indirectly owns
at least a 20 percent stake; or
(C) a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity
described in subparagraph (A) or (B).
(2) COVERED COMPANY.—
(A) The term “covered company” means an entity that operates, directly or
indirectly (including through a parent company, subsidiary, or affiliate), a
website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or
immersive technology application that—
(i) permits a user to create an account or profile to generate, share, and
view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content;
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(ii) has more than 1,000,000 monthly active users with respect to at least 
2 of the 3 months preceding the date on which a relevant determination 
of the President is made; 
 
(iii) enables 1 or more users to generate or distribute content that can be 
viewed by other users of the website, desktop application, mobile 
application, or augmented or immersive technology application; and 
 
(iv) enables 1 or more users to view content generated by other users of 
the website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented or 
immersive technology application. 
 
(B) EXCLUSION.—The term “covered company” does not include an entity 
that operates a website, desktop application, mobile application, or augmented 
or immersive technology application whose primary purpose is to allow users 
to post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews. 
 
(3) FOREIGN ADVERSARY CONTROLLED APPLICATION.—The term 
“foreign adversary controlled application” means a website, desktop 
application, mobile application, or augmented or immersive technology 
application that is operated, directly or indirectly (including through a parent 
company, subsidiary, or affiliate), by a covered company that— 
 
(i) is controlled by a foreign adversary; and 
 
(ii) that is determined by the President to present a significant threat to 
the national security of the Philippines  following the issuance of a — 
 
(I) a public notice proposing such determination; and 
 
(II) a public report to Congress, submitted not less than 30 days before such 
determination, describing the specific national security concern involved and 
containing a classified annex and a description of what assets would need to be 
divested to execute a qualified divestiture. 
 
(4) FOREIGN ADVERSARY COUNTRY.—The term “foreign adversary 
country” means any country identified by the President as having interests 
adversarial to that of the Philippines, in terms of threats to national security 
and our territorial integrity. 
 
(5) INTERNET HOSTING SERVICE.—The term “internet hosting service” 
means a service through which storage and computing resources are provided 
to an individual or organization for the accommodation and maintenance of 1 
or more websites or online services, and which may include file hosting, 
domain name server hosting, cloud hosting, and virtual private server hosting. 


 
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(6) QUALIFIED DIVESTMENT.—The term “qualified divestment” means a 
transfer of title or disposal of interest in property (or shares of stocks) by 
voluntarily, completely, and actually depriving or dispossessing oneself of his 
right or title to it in favor of a person or persons other than his spouse and 
relatives as defined in this Act.  
 
It shall also mean divestiture or similar transaction that the President 
determines, through an interagency process, would result in the relevant 
foreign adversary-controlled application no longer being controlled by a 
foreign adversary;  
 
(7) SOURCE CODE.—The term “source code” means the combination of text 
and other characters comprising the content, both viewable and nonviewable, 
of a software application, including any publishing language, programming 
language, protocol, or functional content, as well as any successor languages or 
protocols. 
 
 
SEC. 3. Prohibition Of Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications. --It shall be 
unlawful for an entity to distribute, maintain, or update (or enable the distribution, 
maintenance, or updating of) a foreign adversary-controlled application by carrying 
out, within the territory of the Philippines, any of the following: 
 
(A) Providing services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign 
adversary-controlled application (including any source code of such 
application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application 
store) through which users within the territory of the Philippines may access, 
maintain, or update such application. 
 
(B) Providing internet hosting services to enable the distribution, maintenance, 
or updating of such foreign adversary-controlled application for users within 
the territory of the Philippines. 
 
SEC. 4. Penalties  
 
(A) The act of providing services to distribute, maintain, or update such foreign 
adversary-controlled application (including any source code of such 
application) by means of a marketplace (including an online mobile application 
store) shall be penalized by imprisonment ranging from six (6) years to twelve 
(12) years and a fine of not less than Five Million pesos (Php5,000,000.00) but 
not more than Ten Million pesos (Php10,000,000.00). 
 
(B) The act of providing internet hosting services to enable the distribution, 
maintenance, or updating of such foreign adversary-controlled application for 
users within the territory of the Philippines shall be penalized by imprisonment 


 
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ranging from three (3) years to six (6) years and a fine of not less than Five 
hundred thousand pesos (Php500,000.00) but not more than Four million pesos 
(Php4,000,000.00). 
 
SEC. 5. Combination or Series of Acts. – Any combination or series of acts as 
defined in Sections 3 hereof shall make the person subject to imprisonment ranging 
from six (6) years to twelve (12) years and a fine of not less than Ten Million pesos 
(Php10,000,000.00) but not more than Twenty Million pesos (Php5,000,000.00). 
 
SEC.  6. Extent of Liability. – If the offender is a corporation, partnership, or any 
juridical person, the penalty shall be imposed upon the responsible officers, as the case 
may be, who participated in, or by their gross negligence, allowed the commission of 
the crime. If the offender is a juridical person, the court may suspend or revoke its 
permit or license to operate and any of its rights under Philippine laws. If the offender 
is an alien, he or she shall, in addition to the penalties herein prescribed, be deported 
without further proceedings after serving the penalties prescribed. If the offender is a 
public official or employee and he or she is found guilty of acts penalized under 
Sections 3, 4, and 5  of this Act, he or she shall, in addition to the penalties prescribed 
herein, suffer perpetual or temporary absolute disqualification from office, as the case 
may be. 
 
SEC. 7. Maximum Penalty. – The maximum penalty in the scale of penalties 
respectively provided for the preceding sections shall be imposed when the offender 
also commits acts of Treason or Espionage or any other offense against the State, as 
defined under our Penal laws. 
 
SEC.  8. Separability Clause.  -- In case any provision of this Act is declared 
unconstitutional or invalid, the other provisions hereof which are not affected thereby 
shall continue in full force and effect. 
 
SEC 9. Effectivity. — This Act shall take effect fifteen (15) days after its 
publication in two (2) national newspapers of general circulation. 
 
 
Approved,