The rivalry between Senators Manny Villar and Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino has gone beyond the campaign trail as the official website of the Nacionalista Party presidential bet supposedly got hacked by an Aquino supporter Monday.
At about 10 a.m., Villar's official website
The name co.ph doesn't exist contained a blog entry titled "Hacked by Kris Aquino."
The entry, which was written in "swardspeak", took jabs at Villar's marketing strategy and ended up coaxing its readers to vote for Aquino instead.
The post, which was allegedly put up on March 19, contained greetings for pinoyhacking.com and other Filipino hackers.
In a statement, Nacionalista Party spokesman and senatorial bet Gilbert Remulla said the party is extremely disturbed by the hacking incident.
"Because this is the Internet, where all data can be fabricated by the determined application of programming resources, it is difficult to point fingers," Remulla said.
The NP bet noted that none of the websites of other presidential candidates have been targeted by hackers. He said the incident was meant to negatively impact the Villar campaign as the NP bet continues to emerge as the front-runner in the 2010 elections.
"From the very beginning we have waged a campaign based on positivity and principles—both online and offline. But underground elements seem to persist, and a cyberwar is being waged against us–what with the flurry of black propaganda texts and 'mansion hoax' e-mails to spoofing our identity on social networks. We can now add website hacking to the list of cybercrimes being committed to take down Manny Villar," he said.
Villar website 'hacked' | ABS-CBN News Online Beta