NEDA website defacement: a form of free speech?

Just last October 7, the NEDA website was found hacked and defaced enabling visitors to go to X-rated sites. The website front page was normal but when the “Past Events” link was clicked, users were led to a screen that listed pornographic ads instead of events. One of the links led readers to a site where it joked that Viagra was powering the high growth rate registered by the country’s GDP. The defacement came only one week after the ZTE-NBN controversy where former NEDA Director General Romulo Neri made an important testimony before the Senate hearings.

Judging from the time of occurrence of the defacement, it may have been a form of protest by the defacer. Hence, did the said defacement come under the aegis of the Constitutional right to free speech? I’ll answer this question with another question: can protesters throw Molotov bombs at a government building as a form of protest? If the answer to the latter is no, then defacement of government websites is also not under the aegis of free speech. Hence, how may one use the Internet to protest against government? Simple: bloggers unite!