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S U N D AY : A P R I L 24 , 2 0 1 6
NEWS
editorial@thestandard.com.ph
‘DUTERTE TO COST PINOYS JOBS’ Palace... From A1
Meanwhile, Quezon advised the public to take basic precautions, like changing their passwords among others, to avoid possible identity theft. “In terms of accountability, it will be the Executive Secretary who will determine the accountability if it is proven that someone indeed used the mail server to download the Comelec data,” Quezon said. Quezon revealed the Palace investigation after internet users accused the Palace on Friday of helping spread the hacked Comelec data containing the personal information of millions of registered voters. The Comelec said on Friday that the United States Department of Justice was able to take down the server in Russia hosting the hacked database. But several downloaders have already managed to convert the database into a torrent file that can be distributed via peer-to-peer sharing platforms. However, internet security experts said it would now be impossible to recover the stolen information, including the voters’ fingerprints. “Once this information is out, it’s impossible to recover,” FireEye Asia Pacific chief technical officer Bryce Boland said in an interview with Bloomberg. “There’s no way for 55-million Filipinos can change their fingerprints. This data is never gonna be recovered and this is the fundamental problem that we are facing but not just in the Philippines but everywhere,” Boland said.
Farmers... From A1
On Saturday, there were at least 3,000 farmers protesting in Koronadal City, South Cotabato, 2,000 in Cagayan de Oro City, Misamis Oriental, 5,000 in Valencia City, Bukidnon plus hundreds more in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur. There were also hundreds of farmers camped outside of the regional office of the Department of Agriculture in Davao City, according to Anakpawis party-list Rep. Fernando Hicap. Hicap denounced Aquino’s attempt to cover-up the accountability of police and local government officials for the violent dispersal of the Kidapawan rally last April 1 and his administration’s “continuing lie” that the government has attended to the effects of El Niño or extreme drought. “Thousands of farmers from Mindanao, as well as in Luzon are now holding Aquino responsible for the Kidapawan violent dispersal, and primarily for the criminal negligence on the effects of drought,” Hicap said. “They are presently demanding relief from the government and we challenge him heed the people’s demand, instead of approving their mass murder,” he added. “Before Aquino kills another hungry farmer demanding food aid and blame again whoever organized them, we are announcing that they are organized under the flag of [Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas], crying for land, food and justice,’’ Hicap said. “They are members of Anakpawis Party-list and we warn Aquino not to
He said that through this cyber attack, it is clearly showed that “all government organizations are not doing enough to protect these data.” “I think it is very serious, we are talking about the personal details of at least 55-million Filipinos, it is not just the name and the address, it’s information of their email address, their passport information, their height, their weight, their parents’ name, even their fingerprint details, this is very significant,” he said. “Not only is this by far the largest data breach of government information since the breach in Turkey where the details of 49 million people were stolen,” Boland said. “This information was not just stolen by single intelligence agency, this information is up in the internet for anyone to access,” Boland said, adding that other Asian countries are also very vulnerable to a major data breach. “Many organizations simply don’t have the defenses to even detect or prevent things from happening,” Boland added, noting that the hacking is twice as high around the world. Boland advised investigators to determine what else the hackers did aside from stealing the database because they could have created a “backdoor” to give them an access in case they will come back and rig the result of the elections. “Often the investigator will just remove the malware and assume that everything is okay,” Boland said. “But what needs to happen is a thorough investigation to understand what else did the attackers do when they broke in and stole that data. Did they make a backdoor to give them
access later and potentially move literally with the Comelec network and potentially change the outcome of the vote in a few weeks’ time,” he added. He also feared that the database might be used by criminal organizations who wanted to conduct fraud and make money against high-profile people. “Often we find that there are people trading these information on underground sites where you can collect information about bank account details, card information, and converted data to build a really comprehensive portfolio information to conduct fraud,” he said. “We’ve seen most of the intelligence gathering has moved towards using cyber espionage because it’s much safer. It’s cost effective and meets all information you want with very good plausible deniability,” he said. “So we mostly see this attacks happening at the national level and they don’t make it public in most cases,” he added. Even Boland said that government organizations are not doing enough to protect these data. Quezon, on the other hand, advised all public offices to move all their servers into the government servers to unify all data. “Now, the government has been pushing a policy of encouraging government offices their servers to a government server in order to protect, supervise and make their protocols more secure,” Quezon said. This may take time, but Quezon believes that it is better if government agencies move toward consolidation of database.
add to his long list of crimes against the people and immediately heed their legitimate demand for relief,” he added. Citing government data, Hicap said the Department of Agriculture has yet to concretely and effectively serve the tens of thousands of farmers gravely affected by El Niño although they have billions of public funds at their disposal. The DA has access to about P3 billion from 2011 to 2013 of so-called quick reaction funds (QRF) or funds to be used to mitigate the effects of climate-related calamities, P1.8 billion drought mitigation fund in 2014, and another P2 billion for this year. In February, the DA North Cotabato provincial office announced that drought damaged P172 million worth of agricultural crops, P55 million to rice and corn crops, the group said. “Based on government data, the rural population of the province is pegged at 930,000. The provincial government declared a state of calamity on Jan. 19. Almost the entire Mindanao is affected by drought, including Butuan, Zamboanga, General Santos, Bukidnon, Davao del Sur, Davao Occidental, Maguindanao, and Guimaras,” Hicap said. Also in Negros, sugar workers under the National Federation of Sugar Workers and the Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura are demanding immediate relief with the onset of the “tiempo muerto,” or dead season when lands planted only to sugarcane lie idle and affecting about 5 million people in the island. Farmers in San Jose del Monte City, Bulacan also lambasted the Aquino presidency for pushing with the MRT7 project that threatens more than 300 hectares of land that are sources of their livelihood.
Moreover, Hacienda Luisita farm workers are condemning the destruction of their crops committed by the president’s Cojuangco-Aquino family. “We have long been publicizing that the farmers are gravely affected by Aquino’s programs and policies. He is an absolute nemesis of genuine land reform and worsened landlessness that engulfs the peasant sector to poverty and hunger, as well as his sponsorship of mass killings of those who demand,” Hicap said. Anakpawis urged the public to support the nationwide movement of the farmers for land, food and justice, as well as holding the Aquino presidency answerable for his anti-people governance and criminal negligence that jeopardize the welfare of tens of millions of Filipinos. In South Cotabato alone, the KMP said the provincial government said 1,900 hectares of corn and 1,300 planted to palay have been damaged by the drought, affecting more than 1,300 farmers. “Other crops like fruit trees, banana, bamboo, cut flowers and vegetable farms in Koronadal, Tantangan, Polomolok, T’boli, Surallah and Tampakan were also greatly affected by drought” while households are suffering water shortages, the KMP said. In Sarangani, it said, the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist reported damage to 938 hectares of corn, 768 hectares of banana, 439 hectares of coconut, 152 hectares of palay and 112 hectares of oil palm. As the drought persists, the KMP said, rivers and irrigation systems are drying up and even “backyard gardens are also dying.”
By Christine F. Herrera and Vito Barcelo
DAGUPAN CITY—Vice President Jejomar Binay and his daughter Senator Nancy Binay on Saturday expressed concern over reports that Filipino workers in Australia are facing loss of their jobs because of Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s joke about the rape of an Australian lay missionary in 1989. The Binays urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to look into the reports as Australian media continued to criticize Duterte with one news anchorman calling the Davao mayor an “evil bastard.” Popular news presenter Paul Murray was the latest Australian celebrity to criticize Duterte for his now infamous joke about the rape and murder of Australian missionary Jacqueline Hamill in 1989. “That evil bastard,” Murray exclaimed after running the video of Duterte’s comments during an April 12 campaign rally. “I don’t know what’s worse: him saying it or other people actually laughing along with it,” Murray said. “It’s disgusting.” “If he [Duterte] becomes president, tear up your tickets and don’t go to the Philippines,” Murray urged his viewers. Murray also posted in his Facebook account describing Duterte as a “vile man” after similar criticism from international media organizations like the Australian Broadcasting Corp., British Broadcasting Corp., Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. “I am asking the DFA to immediately look into reports that Filipino workers in Australia have been terminated by their employer because of the irresponsible and vulgar remarks made by Mister Duterte about wanting to rape a dead Australian missionary,” Binay said. “It is unfortunate that dangerous statements are being said at the time when the Philippines is trying to be globally competitive. It is most unfortunate that women were at the receiving end of such a brutal joke,” Senator Binay told a news conference. A message from a Filipino working in Australia has recently gone viral after it revealed that around 10 to 50 OFWs from Mindanao have been laid off. The message stated that the Australian company decided it would no longer renew the contracts of all Filipino workers under its employ after Duterte poked fun at the rape and murder of Hamill. “The owner of the company we’re working for is a very devout Christian and she felt insulted by Duterte’s comments against her fellow Aussie, our supervisor already told us today that the contracts of all of us 50 Filipino workers will no longer be renewed, that we will be replaced by Pacific Islanders,” said one of the workers who did not want to be identified. “There are only 10 Duterte fans in our group but all of us are affected by the obscenity of their idol,” the worker said. Some 2.4 million Filipinos are depending on their jobs abroad to provide for their families, according to the 2015 survey of the Philippine Statistics Authority, he said. “I was bothered because the mere thought that he was looking at the dead woman yet he was thinking of touching her. It is indescribable. I cannot find a word for it,” the vice president’s daughter, Senator Binay, said. “Because he saw how the Australian lay minister was brutally killed yet he had the urge to do it with that person,” she said. “As a senator, it became my concern those he said about Australia and the United States. He wanted to sever ties with these allied nations. In one event that the Mexican ambassador was present, he also said offensive things against Mexico. Then apparently, it turned out Mexico has huge investments in the Philippines,” the senator said. “We want to be globally competitive. We are not isolated from the rest of the world. We cannot afford that the words coming from someone who is running for President, technically, the words he uttered reflect his foreign policies that he would carry out,” Senator Binay said. “His pronouncements were somewhat dangerous.”