House probe on cyber attacks vs media outfits sought

MANILA, Philippines — Militant members of the House of Representatives have sought a congressional inquiry into the spate of cyber attacks against websites of several news media outfits.

Bayan Muna party-list Reps. Carlos Zarate, Eufemia Cullamat and Ferdinand Gaite filed House Resolution No. 2493, urging the committee on information and communications technology to conduct a probe in aid of legislation into the attacks on media outfits amid the upcoming elections.

“The government should identify and stop the perpetrators of these cyber criminal acts and hold them accountable for their actions, which probably aim not only to disrupt the operations of media entities but also to influence the outcome of the May 9 elections,” read the resolution.

The lawmakers from the Makabayan bloc echoed the call of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines for the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to look into recent cyber attacks on the news websites of CNN Philippines, Rappler and PhilStar online, which all reported experiencing distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, making their respective websites inaccessible for a period of time.

OneNews.PH, the online news portal of Media Quest Group that includes The STAR, was also victimized by DDoS attacks.

“The DICT and the NBI should investigate these cyber attacks against media websites, as the people need credible sources of accurate information during the election season,” the lawmakers said.