Villanueva backs ‘hacking’ investigation

Majority senators have expressed support on the appeal of the minority bloc to look into the alleged breach of some of their staff's emails and implicating them in government destabilization.

Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III on Friday said he has ordered the Senate's information technology (IT) department to investigate the supposed hacking of the email addresses of the staff of Senators Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan.

“I have given instructions to find out from our IT department, what our security measures are and if such a thing is possible, or if logs record such a thing. (We are still in the) Fact-finding (stage),” he said.

He said that he has prompted an action even as Aquino and Pangilinan have yet to communicate with him about the incident.

Sen. Joel Villanueva, for his part, said he was relieved that he and his staff were spared from the hacking. He, however, said he supports the move of his colleagues to have the matter investigated.

“I support the investigation kasi hindi ito biro at dapat malaman natin (because this is no joke and we must know the truth). We have to get to the bottom of this,” he said.

Villanueva said he does not discount the possibility that the supposed “hacker” was indeed attempting to drag opposition senators in a political controversy of planning to destabilize the Duterte administration. “That’s clear and it has been happening,” he said.