Shielding PH elections against foreign intervention
THE National Security Council has warned that a foreign power is trying to influence the outcome of the 2025 elections through cyber hacking and spreading misinformation in social media. NSC Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya said the tactics “could be as subtle as troll farms or disinformation … to sway the public to a certain political thought. Or it could be as serious as hacking the electoral database. Or interfering with the transmission of votes.”
Malaya may not have identified the interloper, but his warning comes on the heels of reports that the United States, Britain and New Zealand have accused China of stepping up cyberattacks against their lawmakers and key democratic institutions.
The US Justice Department has charged seven Chinese it accused of running a “prolific global hacking operation” designed to aid China’s “economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives.”
The attacks were masterminded by APT31, a cyberespionage unit under China’s Ministry of State Security, the department said.
For the past 14 years, APT31 has gained access to “email accounts, cloud storage accounts and telephone call records,” it added.
London said the same group had infiltrated the accounts of key British lawmakers. British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden added to the seriousness of the threat by announcing that Chinese state-affiliated hackers had likely “compromised” the country’s Electoral Commission, a month before British parliamentary elections.
New Zealand said a data breach by another Chinese state-sponsored group, APT40, had compromised its Parliamentary Counsel Office.
Beijing may be the prime cyberhacking suspect at the moment, but it definitely is not the first country to resort to election intervention in expanding its sphere of influence or protecting its interests abroad.
Dov H. Levin, an author and assistant professor of international relations, said that of the 938 national elections held around the world between 1946 and 2000, the US meddled in 81 of them, with the Soviet Union coming in a far second with 36.
The United Kingdom, too, used covert tactics to ensure victory for its candidates in elections in former British territories like India.
The US was a major behind-the-scenes player in the Philippine presidential elections of 1953. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) practically managed and bankrolled the campaign of Ramon Magsaysay, who was challenging the incumbent Elpidio Quirino.
Quirino had fallen from grace with Washington, which considered him ineffective in quelling the growing communist movement in Central Luzon.
Magsaysay, who was Quirino’s defense secretary, was built up as more decisive in dealing with the communist guerrillas, a public image nurtured by his friend and close adviser, Col. Edward Lansdale, who happened to be the CIA’s chief operative in the Philippines at the time.
Magsaysay won the presidency handily. Critics may attribute his victory to being “America’s boy,” but he proved himself to be a charismatic leader who championed the peasants’ cause.
Manipulating elections has since become a more sophisticated enterprise, as digitalization has transformed the electoral process.
China has fended off the allegations of interference, claiming it “never encouraged, supported or condoned cyberattacks.” But it is not the first time it has been accused of trying to rig the polls in the Philippines.