Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered an investigation into the hacking of five government websites in recent weeks, said Press Secretary Cerge Remonde.

The latest to fall prey to hackers was the Technical Education and Skills Department Authority (TESDA) which was put down Sunday night and was redirected on Monday morning to the website of Smartmatic, the company which would provide hardware and software for the May 10 national elections later this year. 

According to Remonde, President Arroyo ordered the Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) to undertake the investigation into the hacking incidents that exposed the security vulnerabilities of websites of vital government agencies.

“President Arroyo told the CICT to come up with a technical proposal designed to prevent similar unauthorized entries in the future,” said Remonde.

Prior to TESDA, other government websites that were hacked were those of the Department of Labor and Employment, the National Disaster Coordinating Council, the Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the Department of Health.

The NDCC is directly under the office of the secretary of the the Department of National Defense.

The TESDA hackers were by far the most political in the message that they left at the defaced website. They were obviously taunting the Arroyo government and the Commission on Elections (Comelec) that they won’t sit down and let the government use vulnerable automated election systems.

However, despite demands from various sectors, Comelec has refused to make public the source code of the software they use to run automated election machines.