Senator Imee Marcos revealed ''a very serious breach'' in the operations of the Smartmatic counting machines to be used in the May 2022 national elections.

Facing reporters after a public hearing on Thursday, Marcos said: ''We have to admit that a very serious breach occurred. It may not be technically hacking. However, we feel that it compromises the processes and operations of Smartmatic in very serious ways.”

Marcos heads the Committee on Electoral Reforms and People’s Participation.

The Commission on Elections (Comelec) insisted there was no hacking of its automated election system (AES) to be used in the May 9 national and local polls.

. as reported by a newspaper last January.

"The Comelec system was not hacked. Clear and simple," said Garcia.

Comelec spokesman James Jimenez said they are confident with the integrity of the results of the elections.

"We are confident that even in this particular case, there was no hacking. And therefore, we feel there will be no impact of that alleged hacking on the election results for 2022," said Jimenez.

Senate President Vicente Sotto III, who permitted some details in the executive session to be disclosed, said:' I think this is part of what we can divulge. There’s an employee of Smartmatic who let the contents of his laptops be copied by a certain group.''

Marcos said Comelec explained that the information was from 2016.

''They said that some of the information is old, from 2016. There’s personal information. Nevertheless, we are concerned because there’s the procedure of Smartmatic, their ledger, photos of their office, the contact persons from Comelec as well as details on who plays golf and drinks red wine,'' she said.

Marcos said the NBI, the CICC (Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center), the National Privacy Commission and other groups are looking into this. Smartmatic reports it is conducting an administrative investigation, she adds. DMS