The defacement of the National Bureau of Investigation’s website over the weekend marked an escalation in a wave of attacks on Philippine government pages, with the country’s main investigative agency becoming the third major state body in less than a week to have its site compromised.

The incident followed similar attacks on the Senate’s website on Wednesday and the House of Representatives’ page on Saturday, raising questions about the government’s ability to protect even its own law enforcement platforms.

In each case, the intruders used the sites to post messages denouncing government corruption. But while the attacks appeared limited and short-lived, analysts said repeated breaches of high-profile state websites could unsettle investors even if no sensitive data was stolen.

“The motives behind these hacks are beside the point – investors don’t price intentions, they price risk,” said Jonathan Ravelas, managing director of eManagement for Business and Marketing Services and a retired chief market strategist of BDO, the Philippines’ largest bank.

“What matters is that unauthorised access exposes gaps in cybersecurity and governance. One incident won’t shake confidence dramatically, but repeated breaches can start to erode perceptions of institutional strength,” he told This Week in Asia.

The NBI defacement was attributed on the page to an entity calling itself #HappyGoLuckyPh, which posted a brief political message adapted from the film V for Vendetta: “the people should not be afraid of their government, government should be afraid of its people”.