Malacañang has denied allegations that President Duterte was elected into office with the help of the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, the same London-based data analytics group linked in a recent Facebook users’ data breach.
About 1.2 million Filipinos were among the 87 million users reportedly affected by the data breach.
Presidential Spokesman Harry L. Roque Jr. said in a news statement that Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III assured that he did not pay anything to Cambridge Analytica nor did he had any transaction with them.
Dominguez was the treasurer of Duterte’s campaign team.
The statement was issued following a report from South China Morning Post, showing Mr. Duterte dining with Alexander Nix, then-board director of Cambridge Analytica parent company Strategic Communications Laboratories in 2015.
Also in the photo, which was taken at a National Press Club event in May 2015, were cousins Peter T. Laviña and Jose Gabriel La Viña, then-NPC President Joel Sy Egco and Taipan Millan, who were identified in the report as Duterte’s family friend.
After the data privacy scandal was made public, Nix was suspended as Cambridge Analytica CEO.
“The President won the election fair and square, with an overwhelming mandate of over 16 million votes and a margin of over 6 million. Support for the former Davao City mayor was from all sectors and not just from Facebook or online; thus, the Duterte campaign did not have to purchase information,” Roque said.
Duterte won the election with landslide victory in 2016. “We should respect the President’s landslide victory, which was a result of the trust and confidence of the Filipino people, and not undermine it with unsubstantiated allegations.”
Cambridge Analytica is also the same firm accused of siphoning Facebook users’ data to aid Donald J. Trump’s US presidential campaign.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify before the US Congress this week to explain how the information was acquired.