(EAGLE NEWS) — Malacañang has condemned the latest website hacking of the Commision on Elections (COMELEC).
Presidential Communications Secretary Sonny Coloma said that the Information and Communications Technology Office (ICTO) of the Department of Science and Technology is already coordinating with the poll body to implement stricter security protocols in their website.
According to the information on this hacking that went viral on social media, voters’ information was uploaded on the web through the site wehaveyourdata.com. But according to COMELEC’s investigation, the integrity of the Automated Elections System was not compromised.
Coloma assured the public that the government is determined to ensure that similar acts will not be repeated in the future and that the perpetrators will be prosecuted in accordance with law.
Despite such assurances from Malacañang, however, candidates are still worried that the elections may be compromised because of the latest hacking incident.
Presidential candidate Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said that they are not comfortable that such an incident occured days before the election. Duterte added that if not monitored properly, this may lead to election fraud.
Meanwhile, senatorial aspirant Grecco Belgica said that the problem is the COMELEC itself since according to him the COMELEC chairman and the commissioners are “manipulating” the entire system.
Belgica is one of the petitioners asking the Supreme Court restore the security features of the Vote Counting Machines (VCM) that had earlier been removed.