Sotto seeks probe on misuse of Senate email account

MANILA, Philippines - Sen. Vicente Sotto III reiterated anew the need for the Senate to investigate the alleged misuse of an official email account of the Public Relations and Information Bureau (PRIB).

Sotto said the Senate should investigate how its official email account had been hacked and was used for black propaganda in the last elections.

“This PRIB office, they came out with a press release coming from their office saying that Sen. (Gregorio) Honasan withdrew from the Senate race two or three days before election time. The Senate office definitely would not come out with that. Who hacked the email?” he asked.

The PRIB is the unit tasked to handle the public relations activities as well as the accreditation of media personnel covering the Senate.

As such, the PRIB has a database of the email addresses of journalists covering the legislative branch of government.

“We must conduct an investigation. The Senate secretary should probably address this in the 16th Congress so that this will not happen ever again,” Sotto said during plenary debates last Thursday before the 15th Congress went into sine die adjournment.

Honasan, who was then seeking re-election, denounced the disinformation campaign. He later won a fresh mandate.

Sotto made the call after Sen. Pia Cayetano blocked the move of acting Senate President Jinggoy Estrada to retain deputy secretary for legislation Edwin Bellen, until the next Congress designates a new Senate secretary.