Anonymous Philippines seeks release of arrested member

MANILA, Philippines - Members of Anonymous Philippines, the group behind some incidents of government website hacking, trooped to the Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday to call for the release Paul Biteng who was arrested for hacking the Commission on Elections (Comelec) website.

Clad in Guy Fawkes masks, the group demanded the release of the 23-year-old Biteng, who remains in detention on charges of illegal access, data interference and illegal use of devices under Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act before the Manila regional trial court.

“Instead of putting him in jail, why not recruit him and other hackers who have skills to protect the system? Why are we being arrested when we are only concerned and defending the cyber security of our country without asking for a single peso?” read a banner they held.

“Why are corrupt officials remaining at-large while a fresh graduate of IT known in Facebook as a security expert is arrested and jailed? Where is justice? This is why we in Anonymous will continue to be on guard,” one of their members told reporters.

Refusing to reveal their names, the group admitted that they defaced the Comelec website only to disprove the poll body’s claim that it has put sufficient safeguards to prevent the hacking of its website.

Malacañang said the public must wait until the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) completes its investigation on the leak of Comelec voters’ data amid calls to charge the poll body for negligence and for failing to protect voter information.

 Undersecretary Manuel Quezon III said the NBI has arrested those behind the website breach and that the Comelec has since tightened access to its data.

Anonymous claimed that Biteng, who needs to post P600,000 bail, only defaced the website and that it was second hacker Jonel de Asis who was responsible for the theft of voters’ information.

De Asis, a member of a group named LulzSec Pilipinas, was arrested last week for reportedly downloading 340 GB of data from the Comelec website to prove that it can be easily hacked.

He also allegedly leaked the Comelec data, which include the details of 55 million registered voters.

Before leaving DOJ, the group declared a “ceasefire” and announced that there would be no hacking of government websites until after the May 9 elections as they urged Filipinos to vote wisely. – With Mayen Jaymalin, Delon Porcalla