To avoid the May 9 elections being “Smartmagicked,” Senator Imee Marcos on Sunday said government agencies led by the National Bureau of Investigation will first conduct a thorough probe of alleged security breaches of the poll technology provider’s system.
Other Smartmatic employees who might possibly be involved in the supposed security breach of the firm’s election software system will be investigated, Marcos also said in a radio interview.
“We are afraid of the elections being manipulated. As you can see in the Senate, no candidate really wants to be a Smartmagicked. Even my brother (former senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.), Senator (Vicente) Sotto, Senator Koko (Pimentel), we have different (presidential) candidates. but everyone really doesn’t want to be Smartmagicked again,” she said.
The Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms, which Marcos chairs, will determine if there are others who worked alongside the Smartmatic employee who was recently placed under the custody of the NBI for involvement in the supposed infringement on Smartmatic’s data.
Asked how to avoid the “Smartmagic” in the upcoming elections, Marcos said: “What we will really do is focus on this investigation. We will first allow the NBI, CICC (Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center), and DICT (Department of Information and Communications Technology) to conduct a thorough investigation.”
But the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) on Sunday called on the public to continue to trust the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and Smartmatic, reiterating the alleged breach first reported by a national newspaper (not the Standard) has nothing to do with the upcoming polls.
“We must still trust the Comelec and Smartmatic because if we don’t, then what is the point of our preparations? What else are we giving importance to in our upcoming elections?” PPCRV national trustee and director for voters education and volunteers mobilization Dr. Arwin Serrano said.
But Marcos said: “These are the ones we are looking at because if there is one employee, there might be others. It’s very important that we know who they are. Maybe it was all planted, and we don’t know who did that.”
She asked Smartmatic to be wary of its employees, asking why they would allow even the contractual ones to have access to their vital election information.
“This mere contractual employee got in and out and even stole their data. This is what makes me nervous because a contractual employee who
apparently, they hardly know, has access to confidential information,” she added.
Marcos earlier claimed that Smartmatic data, including personal information, ledgers, office photos, and contact persons in the Comelec, might have been hacked by a syndicate.
In another Super Radyo dzBB interview on Sunday, Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said the NBI should tap its cyber experts and software programmers to check the claim if a supposed “source code” was posted on Facebook.
“The Comelec has lapses, there are doubts about them because 40 million ballots were printed behind closed doors. That’s not allowed.
The SD cards were already configured, meaning they were loaded with software behind closed doors without anyone even looking. That is also
forbidden. The Comelec really has many lapses,” he said.
Pimentel echoed Marcos’ call for another hearing, saying these are also the Senate’s way of monitoring the actions taken by the poll body.
“Actually, the hearings should not end. These should be continued because these are our means of monitoring and overseeing the actions
of the Comelec. When the election comes, the Comelec is supreme. But it doesn’t mean that even if you’re supreme, you are no longer allowed
to be asked, you are no longer allowed to explain your actions,” Pimentel said.
In January, the Comelec assured the public that election data for Eleksyon 2022 were not hacked, disputing a report by the Manila
Bulletin that poll data — network diagrams, IP addresses, list of all privileged users, domain admin credentials, among others — were hacked.
But PPCRV’s Serrano said there really are people who would want to cause confusion and try to stop the elections, but the important thing is to continue doing other important election-related tasks instead of getting diverted.
He reiterated the data breach issue was brought about by a former employee of Smartmatic and only involved the personal files of some
Comelec officials and their personal engagement activities with Smartmatic.
“It has nothing to do with it. We are not at risk. We are still focused on what we are preparing for and as the investigation continues, we will also find out what the final result of the NBI will be. I believe that we should continue to trust our automated elections system in the coming May 9, 2022 elections,” he added.
Asked if he believes that elections will be clean and fair, Serrano said, “Yes, I and all of us here believe that we will have clean
elections and we continue to ask the people to include it in our prayers that we will have clean, accurate, meaningful, and peaceful elections.”
Another poll watchdog Legal Network for Truthful Elections (LENTE) also said on Saturday that the public need not worry about the
supposed data breach as the details on the extent of the possible “infringement” have not yet been sorted out.
