A Manila Regional Trial Court has dismissed the cybercrime charges filed against Paul Biteng, who was accused of hacking the Commission on Elections website and leaking data in 2016.
Presiding Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina of the Manila RTC Branch 32 acquitted Biteng of charges for violating Republic Act 10175 or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 after the prosecution failed to categorically link him as the perpetrator for the crimes charged.
In 2016, Biteng, a security engineer and an Information Technology graduate, was tagged in the “Comeleak” incident in which the Comelec website was hacked and defaced and voters’ data was leaked.
Operatives from the National Bureau of Investigation linked him to the incident after seeing his name in one of the hacking video tutorials of a certain PhantomHacker Khalifax on YouTube. The term “kh4lifax” was also seen on the defaced Comelec website that was made to look like a website of Anonymous Philippines.
A screenshot of the Comelec website was also uploaded to the Facebook group of Anonymous Philippines, where Biteng was said to be an admin.
After he was arrested, remnants of the terms “kh4lifax” and “Comelec” were found on Biteng’s computer hard drive.
However, Medina said the NBI’s investigation failed to prove that Biteng was the one who defaced the Comelec website.
“Nowhere in these videos and posts were it convincingly shown that accused defaced the Comelec website. In fact, the bulk of the evidence only sought to prove that accused posted 1. Hacking tutorials prior to the commission of the subject offenses; 2. A screenshot of the defaced Comelec website; and 3. Comments regarding the Comelec hacking incident,” Medina said in her decision dated Feb. 17. (Minka Tiangco)