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NEWS
editorial@thestandard.com.ph
SECOND COMELEC HACKER ARRESTED
By Sara Susanne D. Fabunan
THE National Bureau of Investigation agents arrested a second suspect in the hacking of the Commission on Elections website and the theft of a database of 57-million registered voters, a Comelec spokesman said Friday. Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said the NBI’s Cybercrime Division arrested Jonel de Asis, 23, from his home in Muntinlupa City. Comelec Chairman Andres Bautista said De Asis confessed to being the mastermind behind the hacking of the poll body’s website, but denied that he and his group created the wehaveyourdata.com website which made publicly available the database of personal information belonging to 57-million registered voters, including their home addresses, birthdays, relatives, fingerprints and even passport numbers. Jimenez said De Asis also confessed that he and his fellow hackers decided to hack the website to prove that the Comelec website can easily be breached.
“I asked him if they had a plan for the elections, if there was a political angle to what they did, and he said no. He said he’s not even a registered voter,” Jimenez said in Filipino. The NBI seized De Asis’ personal computer and mobile phone. The first suspect, Paul Biteng, was arrested a week ago and admitted to the crime. He faces charges of illegal access to a computer system, data interference and misuse of devices under the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. The NBI said it was still hunting down a third suspect. Jimenez said the 340-gigabyte database that was stolen appeared to be old files and unlikely to affect the May 9 elections. Jimenez said De Asis confessed that the da-
tabase that he had stolen were old files. “We cannot still say if the database he stole is authentic, because even the hacker admitted that they targeted old data. They said they believed that if it is old data, it is no longer relevant,” Jimenez said. He did not address the loss of privacy suffered by millions of voters, or the potential for identity theft and other crimes as a result of the data breach, however. In March, Anonymous Philippines hacked the official Comelec website, defacing it with a message address to the poll body, demanding that they make sure the security features on the vote counting machines were activated on Election Day. Another group called “LulzSec” accessed the data on the poll body’s website and posted it online. “A great lol to Commission on Elections, here’s your whoooooole database,” LulzSec Pilipinas said in a Facebook post. The instance was the first major leak of election-related data by a hacker group in the Philippines.
Nabbed. Suspected Comeleaks hacker Jonel de Asis covers his face as officials of the National Bureau of Investigation’s Cybercrime Division presented him to the media after he was arrested on Friday for his admitted role in hacking the website of the Commission on Elections last March. DANNY PATA
Ex-Supreme... From A1
Corona earned his Bachelor of Laws degree at Ateneo Law School in 1974. In 1981, he was accepted to the Master of Laws program of the Harvard Law School. In April 2011, Corona graduated summa cum laude from the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School with a degree of Doctor of Civil Law. Corona’s appointment to the top position in the Supreme Court was controversial because it was made despite an election period-ban on new appointments. The justices ruled, however, that appointments to the Court were not covered by such a ban. In November 2011, the Su-
preme Court under Corona ordered the distribution of the 4,915-hectare Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac to farmers of the sugar estate owned by the family of President Benigno Aquino III. In a separate opinion, Corona argued for a lower compensation to the owners of the hacienda, based on the fair market value of the land in November 1989. A month later, allies of President Aquino in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Corona over charges of hidden assets and partiality toward Arroyo. After an impeachment trial— the first in judicial history—the Senate voted 20-3 in May 2012 to convict him for betrayal of public trust due to his failure to disclose all his properties in his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth. Corona was then removed from
office and succeeded by Chief Justice Sereno. In 2013, Senator Jinggoy Estrada revealed that senators who voted to convict Corona received P50 million in extra development funds from the Budget Department. While the Palace denied that these allocations were bribes, senators who voted to acquit Corona did not receive similar funding for their projects. Corona’s ordeal did not stop with his ouster. In March 2014, the Justice department filed a case against him before the Court of Tax Appeals for allegedly evading taxes on P120.5 million in assets. A few weeks after that, the Office of the Ombudsman filed a civil case for forfeiture of unexplained wealth amounting to P130.3 million and also cases of perjury and violation of the Code
of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials before the Sandiganbayan. Corona vowed to clear his name and said he was the victim of “merciless persecution” by President Aquino. He said the cases filed against him were expected, since they were the work of Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and then Justice secretary Leila de Lima, both Aquino appointees and both witnesses against him during his impeachment trial. “The harassment continues without letup. Malacañang and its attack dogs were not content with removing me from office. They have been filing all sorts of baseless and contrived cases against me and members of my family,” he said in January 2014. With Sandy Araneta, Vito Barcelo and Joel E. Zurbano
Duterte... From A1 of transactions. What’s next? Mayor Duterte is behind the $81-million Bangladeshi bank heist? This is already the height of absurdity.” Duterte added that he still wants Trillanes to execute an affidavit, but it was not clear if this would be a condition to letting BPI open his bank account for examination Monday. The mayor defended himself against accusations that the accounts held illgotten wealth. “I have an explanation for that. Not all politicians’ money is stolen money. Where did I steal? I’ve been mayor for 22 years. Have you seen any case? Ask anybody in Davao if I was I in any transaction,” Duterte said. In the same interview, Duterte confirmed that a staunch ally of Vice President Jejomar Binay—Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla—has thrown his support behind him instead. “We have forged an alliance to support each other,” Duterte said. Administration standard bearer Manuel Roxas II said Duterte should stop peddling lies about fighting corruption and likened him to Binay, who kept deflecting questions about his alleged ill-gotten wealth. “Mayor Duterte, time’s up. Tell the truth,” Roxas said in a press briefing at the ruling Liberal Party’s Balay headquarters in Quezon City. In the same press briefing, Roxas waved to members of the media another validation slip whom his staff deposited with $10, which turned out to be another joint dollar account by Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte and daughter Sara Zimmerman Duterte. In various interviews, Duterte claimed that he doesn’t have any dollar account and that he has faithfully declared everything in his SALN. “Are you toeing the line of Vice President Binay who kept on hiding from the truth? Who kept on deflecting issues on these bank accounts? Please tell the truth, Mayor Duterte. Our countrymen expects nothing but the whole truth and nothing else,” Roxas said. The BPI dollar account, 002434200159-2071 was one of the seven bank accounts revealed by Trillanes recently. Roxas said that upon checking the existence of Duterte’s alleged accounts, his staff was advised that he could not deposit pesos because the account was for dollars. “His claim that he doesn’t have dollar accounts [is] a lie because it’s a dollar account and it’s under the name of Mayor Duterte,” Roxas said. Roxas slammed Duterte, saying that the “waivers” whom his running mate Senator Alan Peter Cayetano peddled during the presidential debates were a farce. “That’s only for press release. It’s useless,” Roxas said. The Palace on Friday denied it was behind Trillanes’ expose. “There is no truth to the allegations,” said Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr., in a text message. Trillanes kept up the attack on Friday, saying he was validating reports that the mayor had undeclared properties as well. He reiterated his challenge to Duterte to prove him wrong and show he did not have billions of pesos in bank transactions. He also said the P211 million in the BPI account was just the tip of the iceberg. With Sandy Araneta