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Manila Bulletin devider Philippines devider Comelec says no information related to elections obtained in Smartmatic data leak

Comelec says no information related to elections obtained in Smartmatic data leak

Published Apr 22, 2022 02:15 pm

Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Rey Bulay bared on Friday, April 22, that no information that will affect the upcoming May 2022 polls was accessed in the alleged Smartmatic data breach.

Comelec Chairman Saidamen Pangarungan and Commissioner George Garcia during the walkthrough of the VCM and CCS production and deployment process held at Comelec warehouse, Sta. Rosa, Laguna March 14, 2022.(Ali Vicoy)

During a press briefing, Bulay said that this was according to the report of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the poll body's technology provider for the automated election system (AES) Smartmatic.

"Puro intramural documents ng Smartmatic ang nakuha (Only intramural documents of Smartmatic were obtained)," he stated.

The NBI, according to Bulay, even conducted search operations on the other gadgets of Smartmatic's former employee Ricardo Argana.

"Para tingnan kung meron pang ibang storage o kung nadownload e talagang data ng Comelec.. So napatunayan po na wala (To see if there are other storages or if what was downloaded was actually Comelec data. So it was proven that it was not)," he said.

The Comelec on Tuesday, appeared before the Senate Committee on Electoral Reforms and People's Participation chaired by Senator Imee Marcos. Bulay said that the poll body was able to get past the strict committee.

However, the Comelec also told the Senate committee that it has decided to withhold a P90-million payment for the services to Smartmatic.

Chairman Saidamen Pangarungan said that Comelec would also wait for the findings of the NBI probe before deciding on the actions regarding its contract with Smartmatic, including possible sanctions against the firm for any contract violations.

Related Tags

AES 2022 elections 2022 presidential elections 2022 polls Comelec 2022 national and local polls Commission on Elections (Comelec) 2022 NATIONAL AND LOCAL ELECTIONS Commission on Elections automated election system (AES) smartmatic
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