The Commission on Elections (Comelec) on Tuesday, April 19 told a Senate committee that it has decided to withhold a P90-million payment for the services to Smartmatic, its automated elections technology provider, whose data were allegedly breached as the May 9, 2022 election approaches.
Appearing before the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People's Participation chaired by Senator Imee Marcos, Comelec Chairman Saidamen Pangarungan said the Comelec would wait for the findings of the National Bureau of Investigation's (NBI) probe before deciding on the actions regarding its contract with Smartmatic, including possible sanctions against the firm for any contract violations.
"Because we want to clear this matter about this leakage of some data,” Pangarunan told Marcos.
Pangarungan was appointed to head the Commission by President Duterte last month.
He said the Comelec law department recommended that they wait for the conclusion of the NBI probe on the Smartmatic data breach for them to assess the extent of the data breach and what steps they would eventually take.
When the alleged data breach was reported, Pangarungan said Comelec lawyers studied the options the Commission might adopt should Smartmatic be shown to have violated its contract on the AES, if Smartmatic has any contact with a partisan group or organization, or has violated on confidentiality and on the Data Privacy law.
This includes, according to the Comelec chief, a recommendation for the termination of Smartmatic contract and forfeiture of its performance security.
It also includes a recommendation for damages and the filing criminal charges based on the Data Privacy law.
Pangarungan assured that the Smartmatic case would not affect the May 9, 2022 elections.
During the hearing, Marcos, sister of presidential candidate Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr., asked Smartmatic on the changes that the company instituted in order to prevent another breach in their systems.
The lady senator raised the question after the NBI presented its report on the alleged breach, stating that the primary suspect behind the incident might not be alone in committing the crime.
“The NBI said that it is impossible to do the breach alone. So, the implication therefore is that there are Smartmatic employees who maybe are black hats, who may be hacking vital information. Are there any efforts on the part of Smartmatic to investigate your employees?” Marcos asked.
In response, Smartmatic Legal Counsel Christian Robert Lim agreed that there’s no absolute way to determine if any of the personnel left is an ally or conspiring with their former employee but he assured the senator that they are now closely monitoring the actions of all their employees.
Lim, a former acting chairman of the Comelec, said Smartmatic has been coordinating with the NBI in the filing of charges against the primary suspect in the data breach.
The NBI told Marcos that two persons have been charged so far and the third is still at large ‘’but is in the country.’’
At the conclusion of the hybrid committee hearing, Marcos expressed hopes that the coming elections would be fair, free and open.