Palace: PNoy allowed telco to give text messages on Mamasapano to Senate panel

By ANDREO CALONZO, GMA News

Published March 20, 2015 2:50pm

(UPDATED 9:11 p.m.) President Benigno Aquino III allowed telecommunications firm Smart Communications to release a transcript of his text exchanges last Jan. 25, the day of the deadly Mamasapano incident, as requested by the Senate, Malacañang said on Friday.

Malacañang made this statement on Friday, a few days after the Senate public order committee released its report on the Mamasapano operation, which found Aquino “ultimately responsible” for the bloody incident.

"The President—through Executive Secretary Paquito N. Ochoa, Jr.—gave his consent to a request from the Senate concerning the release of transcriptions of SMS conversations between him and General Purisima in the early hours of January 25, 2015,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a statement.

"This is in keeping with upholding the dignity of the office and maintaining the principle of separation of powers and respect for a co-equal branch of government,” she added.

A report on GMA News TV's State of the Nation said the letter was dated March 4.

In a Senate inquiry last month, Undersecretary Michael Frederick Musngi said Malacañang already gave the President’s consent to release text messages between Aquino and Purisima last on Jan. 25.

Smart Communications has already said that it could only retrieve the time logs, and not the contents of the SMS exchanges between the two officials.

The Palace also sent the media a copy of Ochoa's letter to Senate President Franklin Drilon, which read that the President “has given his consent to the release of the requested transcriptions by Smart.”

Ochoa told Drilon in the letter that text messages “which have no relation to the subject of the inquiry or matters involving national security” cannot be released.

—NB, GMA News

Tags: benignoaquinoiii, mamasapanoclash, smarttelecommunications, textmessages, alanpurisima