MANILA – The camp of vice presidential candidate Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos, Jr. on Tuesday filed criminal cases before the Manila Prosecutor’s Office (MPO) against Smartmatic executives and an Information Technology (IT) representative of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) for their alleged unauthorized change of the script in the transparency server of the Comelec on the night of the May 9 national elections.
Charged were Smartmatic Executive Marlon Garcia, Elie Moreno, Smartmatic Project Director; Neil Banigued, a member of the Smartmatic Technical Support Team and Rouie Peñalba, IT Officer of Comelec, for their alleged unauthorized script change.
Marcos, through his legal counsel Atty. Jose Amor Amorado, filed before the MPO a complaint for violation of Section 4, Chapter II of Republic Act No. 10175, or the “Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2010.”
Amorado said that the law makes punishable offenses that affect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of computer data and systems, including “illegal access of any part of a computer system without right.”
He added that they filed the complaint for violation of the Cybercrime Law before the Prosecutor’s office against Smartmatic and Comelec IT representative in the transparency server for opening the system without authority of the Comelec and instituting changes in the script.
Amorado said that they have enough evidence to pin down the Smartmatic executives and Comelec IT representative based on public documents and the pronouncement by no less than the Comelec that their interference in the system had no authorization.