PCO, Official Gazette Websites Fully Restored Following Tuesday Down-Time
The official websites of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) and the Official Gazette are fully restored following a multi-hour accessibility disruption on Tuesday, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) confirmed.
The two critical government portals, which serve as the primary channels for state announcements, executive orders, and official proclamations, became inaccessible to the public at around 3:00 PM on Tuesday, May 19, 2026.
Technical teams successfully brought both platforms back online by 12:28 AM on Wednesday, May 20, 2026, ending nearly nine hours of downtime.
Ongoing System Optimization
While both websites are now visible online, the DICT Cybersecurity Bureau cautioned that the public may still encounter minor performance issues.
"Users may still experience slightly slower page loading times as system optimization continues," the DICT stated in an official advisory.
Cybersecurity Probe Underway
The DICT’s National Computer Emergency Response Team (NCERT) has launched a comprehensive investigation to determine what triggered the simultaneous outage. NCERT engineers are currently conducting a deep-dive cybersecurity assessment and reviewing system audit logs.
Authorities are keeping an open mind regarding the root cause of the disruption. According to investigators, the probe is focusing on four primary possibilities:
Scheduled system maintenance that may have run over time
Internal configuration updates that caused an unexpected system crash
Intentional administrative actions by web masters
External cyber factors, including potential malicious disruptions or cyberattacks
The PCO is actively cooperating with the DICT to secure the platforms' infrastructure and prevent future downtime. Government IT officials have not yet released a definitive timeline for the completion of the forensic audit, promising to share verified updates as soon as the investigation concludes.
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