BAGUMBAYAN senatorial bet Richard J. Gordon called on the Commission on Elections to ensure that all the hackers involved in the recent defacement and leak of data from the Comelec’s official website are arrested and to take extra precautions to assure the country that the results of the upcoming presidential elections will not be manipulated by hackers and cheaters.
Gordon issued the call following the arrest of one of the alleged hackers responsible for the defacement of the Comelec website and after an independent site launched a searchable database of alleged voter data from the poll body.
“The confluence of events is alarming. This involves the very essence of democracy—the registered voters who will elect the next leaders of our country, their records are hacked with impunity. It is important that the Comelec must be serious in making sure that they catch all these hackers. That the Comelec assures the country that there would be no cheating on May 9,” the former senator said.
“The hacking itself is very disturbing but even more disturbing is the cavalier way the Comelec is treating it. This is the records of the people—their addresses, their numbers, their family, etc. The Comelec is treating it like it is nothing to worry about. If the system is hacked like that, there is a possibility that people can later on vote for those who have not voted. They can hack into the system and interfere with the transmission of the election results. The Comelec has to assure the public that the whole system is hack-proof and cheat-proof,” he reiterated.
Gordon also expressed concern that that there are still cases of multiple registrations which may enable those voters to vote more than once.
“I hope the Comelec will stringently check its records because there are reports that some voters have already transferred their registrations but their registration in their old precincts have not been deleted,” he said.
Gordon called on all parties and the public to join hands to make sure that the country will have a clean elections because the future of the country depends on peace and stability that a clean, honest and credible elections would bring.
He again reiterated his call for all voters to make the printed receipts identifiable by writing their names, time and date of voting and voting precinct at the back of the receipts so it could serve its purpose as a vote verification tool.
The Comelec website was hacked and defaced allegedly by Anonymous Philippines last month. Shortly after, data of 55 million voters was leaked publicly and compromised data such as biometrics, dates of birth, email addresses, family members’ names, genders, home addresses, job titles, marital statuses, names, passport numbers, phone numbers, and physical attributes. The breach included 228,000 email addresses.