MANILA, Philippines — The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) signified on Tuesday its willingness to revisit existing policies on the use of technology for operational matters amid the continuous rise of artificial intelligence, specifically Chinese chatbot DeepSeek.
At the meeting of the Commission on Appointment panel on national defense on Tuesday, Rep. Marvey Mariño asked if the AFP intended to regulate the use of AI or ban its use.
“How do you guide the military on which and what to type in that information? The more you type into it, the more it learns about everything about our nation. So they actually don’t have to go to the Philippines to understand and get information. I guess that’s my question — for me to understand whether we will regulate the use or we will ban the use such as what they did in Taiwan,” said Mariño.
This was seconded by Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte Jr., who insisted that Taiwan, for an instance, had already banned the use of DeepSeek because of security risks.
“I think the AFP has to seriously consider what Taiwan has done because as you know, we have a conflict with China right now and if you take this lightly and act later, it might be detrimental to our security,” Villafuerte said.
“For security considerations, just in case you decide to ban DeepSeek, it’s no loss to the country. But if we don’t consider — I’m not saying you ban it — but if you don’t consider, it might be a security risk,” he emphasized.
At the end of their probe, it was the turn of the AFP appointee to the rank of Brigadier General Constancio Espina II.
According to Espina, the AFP was “seriously considering these kinds of technology, especially that it can be used against [Filipinos].”
“My point was the fact that it’s not just DeepSeek but other technologies that we are using — that we need to use it with caution and then we need to not put it matters that will be detrimental to our national security,” Espina said.
“So in the AFP, we are prohibiting our soldiers, officers, and men to use this technology to upload confidential information, information that [is] of national security — these are prohibited in the AFP,” he added.
Later in the meeting, Mariño asked if the AFP already issued a policy prohibiting Filipino soldiers and personnel from downloading DeepSeek.
“The DeepSeek is new, but we already have a policy on social media and other technologies that we are not allowed to upload confidential matters,” Espina answered.
But Mariño argued that the policy was universal for all emerging AI technologies. He then particularly noted that with DeepSeek, China could manipulate the information over time.
“So the story can change for somebody who gets information from DeepSeek. Five years from now it’s a different story,” Mariño pointed out.
“That’s why we don’t wanna put information and enrich this AI company so that they can later on use it against us…… So that is the bottom line of what I’m asking whether you should or not create a policy for I guess military personnel to not download deepseek or any AI that will be detrimental to national security,” he added.
Following this, the lawmaker pressed Espina to answer whether or not the AFP would issue a new policy or study its existing ones.