Two elections watchdog groups have agreed there is no hacking on the Commission on Elections' (Comelec) website, particularly data for the 2022 polls, but they called on the body to ensure the integrity of its system against any possible breach.
The Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) and the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) said they support Comelec's pronouncement that there is really no hacking on its website following a Manila Bulletin report that said a group of hackers allegedly managed breach Comelec servers and downloaded more than 60 gigabytes of data.
The watchdog groups issued their position during a House Committee on Suffrage and Electoral Reforms hearing, which they said they based on their coordination with the poll body.
"We confirm that we received information that the data is not the 2022 data because it has not been generated," PPCRV chair Myla Villanueva said. "We do support the position of the Comelec that the pins were not generated at that time, so there's really nothing to act ."
Meanwhile, NAMFREL Secretary General Eric Alvia added: "Upon initial checks, also because we inquired with our friends in the Comelec and we wanted to get clarified also...it's true and we concur with the statements of the Comelec that the database that are being alleged to be stolen do not exist."
For Alvia, "there is a low possibility that the database has been hacked."
But the watchdog groups maintained their call for the poll body to ensure that the data it and its service providers possess are protected from hackers.
Villanueva said the Comelec must look into the possibility that the pins of vote-counting machines (VCMs), which were alleged in the report to be hacked, might actually be the pins from the 2019 elections.
But Comelec Commissioner Marlon Casquejo said it could not be possible because they are "doing stripping of the servers every after elections."
"When we say stripping of the servers, all the servers containing any official information, pins, everything, will be removed," he said.
If there are pins that have been left, they might be the dummy pins which are used for laboratory tests, such as mock elections and road shows, Casquejo added.
"At the same time also, we are not discounting possibiltiy that those information have been obtained from third party sources which Comelec is working with," NAMFREL's Alvia said, particularly referring to the poll body's software provider Smartmatic.