MANILA, Philippines – Senator Sherwin Gatchalian believes his personal Twitter account was suspended on Wednesday, September 4, due to online attacks. 

Gatchalian’s Twitter account (@stgatchalian) has been unavailable since around noontime Wednesday.

“Account suspended. Twitter suspends accounts that violate the Twitter rules,” the notice on his account read.

Gatchalian told Rappler that his office has already complained about the suspension to the social networking site.

“We think may mga (there are [people]) maliciously reporting to Twitter,” the senator said.

Gatchalian said his social media team have reviewed his posts and found nothing offensive about them.

Asked whether he thinks it’s a cyberattack, Gatchalian said, “That’s what we think. Mayroon talagang nag-operate (Somebody really launched an operation).”

But the senator still doesn’t know where the attack came from.

According to Twitter rules, accounts may be suspended due to the following reasons:

• Spam
• Account security at risk
• Abusive tweets or behavior

Gatchalian’s personal account is handled by the senator himself, who occasional tweets about current events. The account is still suspended as of this posting.

The senator has another Twitter account (@WinGatchalian74) that is handled by his office. It is used to post daily updates about the senator’s whereabouts and his work at the Senate. – Rappler.com