The Philippine government's www.gov.ph website was hacked on Wednesday over the killings of the nine activists in different raids in Southern Tagalog on Sunday.
As of 9:40 p.m., the said website maintained by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) was still inaccessible and only bore a message that stated that the website was broken.
"Websites sometimes break. Please wait while we put it back together," the message on the website read.
However, a group called Cyber PH Human Rights claimed responsibility for the cyberattack on the main website of the Philippine Government through a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Attack.
In an email to several news organizations in the country, the group warned of more cyberattacks to be launched on different government websites to expose the "weaknesses of the government's IT system."
"In the coming days, we intend to make another round of sustained DDoS attacks on government websites which had been complicit in perpetuating barefaced lies on the killing of unarmed civilians and the worsening of the nation’s human rights situation," the group read in its email.
"It is our commitment to undertake further cyberattacks on other government assets, including assets of non-state agents who had fostered fake news, slander, and libel to the public," it added.
Cyber PH Human Rights explained that their attack aims to send a message to President Duterte and his government, to stop the killing of unarmed civilians.
It pointed at President Duterte and several high-ranking officials to be responsible for the killings of the activists, citing his order to shoot suspected communist rebels in a speech in Cagayan de Oro last week.
"We hold President Duterte personally responsible for all of these deaths, together with National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., Philippine National Police Chief Debold Sinas, and AFP Southern Luzon Command Chief Lt. General Antonio Parlade Jr. for serving as Mr. Duterte’s ringleaders in the killing of unarmed civilians," the group said.
According to the group, the killings and arrests were undertaken through the abuse in issuing search warrants.
It claimed that the government's security forces have been in collusion with judges in the Regional Trial Court.
"As we had seen in drug killings in the past, and political killings of activists today, due process and probable cause had been thrown out the window in the service of the bloodlust of the President against his perceived enemies," the email read.
The group called on the public to unite against the "worsening" human rights situation in the country and call for justice for what it called the "massacre" of the nine activists.
Malacañang on Monday assured the public that the government will investigate the deaths of nine activists in separate police operations in the Southern Tagalog on Sunday, saying their deaths were not covered by the international humanitarian law (IHL).