Nanawagan si Senadora Imee Marcos nitong Linggo sa Kongreso na ipatawag ang joint congressional oversight committee (JCOC) sa lalong madaling panahon upang talakayin ang mga mekanismo kung paano mapigilan na maganap ang isang election failure sa darating na eleksyon sa Mayo.
Noong nakaraang linggo, naghain ng resolusyon si Marcos, chairman ng Senate Committee on Electoral Reform and People’s Participation, upang hilingin sa Senado na imbestigahan ang mga alegasyon ng hacking at security breach sa Commission on Elections (Comelec) cybersecurity system sa kabila ng pagtanggi ng poll body.
“I fear a failure of elections could be declared and a Constitutional crisis would arise if our election system has indeed been severely compromised,” sabi ni Marcos sa isang pahayag.
“A record number of 67 million registered Filipino voters may be deprived of their right to elect a new president, vice president, and Congress in May,” dagdag niya.
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Tumatakbo sa pagkapangulo ang kapatid ni Marcos na si dating senador na si Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.
“Despite the uncertainty, we hang on to President Duterte’s promise during last month’s global Summit for Democracy that honest, peaceful, credible, and free elections will push through,” ipinunto niya.
Kabilang sa mga ahensya ng gobyerno at pribadong grupo na inimbitahan ng panel ni Marcos sa pagdinig ang Comelec, National Privacy Commission, Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (DICT-CICC) ng Department of Information and Communications Technology, National Bureau of Investigation Cybercrime Division, at ang Manila Bulletin.
Inimbitahan din ng panel ang Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), National Movement for Free Elections (Namfrel), Legal Network for Truthful Elections (Lente), Democracy Watch, at Center for People Empowerment in Governance (CenPEG)/AES Watch.
Sinasabi ng mga ulat na nakakuha ang mga hacker ng akses sa 60 gigabytes ng sensitibong data ng AES sa mga tauhan ng Comelec, lokal at overseas Filipino voters, vote counting machine, at voting precincts. Gayunpaman, itinatanggi ng Comelec ang ulat at tinitiyak na mananatiling ligtas ang mga server nito.
“The vast degree of hacking reportedly involved has fanned rumors that certain local and foreign groups are flirting with a failure of elections scenario. The JCOC and the electoral reforms committee will get to the bottom of this,” pagtitiyak ni Marcos.
Hannah Torregoza
