NTC seeks telcos' help in wiretapping probe

By Erwin Lemuel Oliva INQ7.net

THE NATIONAL Telecommunications Commission (NTC) has scheduled a meeting with local telephone companies on Wednesday, as it begins its own investigation into the alleged wiretapping of the telephone conversations of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with a supposed Commission on Elections official, an NTC official told INQ7.net.

"We're calling the telephone companies into a meeting to look at how could this happen. We will tap their expertise, although we're not really implicating them in this recent incident," said NTC Deputy Commissioner Jorge Sarmiento, quoting NTC Commissioner Ronald Solis.

The official stressed that NTC would seek the technical expertise of the telephone companies, the official added.

Wiretapping, unless permitted by a court order, is illegal in the Philippines.

Malacañang has ordered the Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC) and the NTC (NTC) to step into the investigation of the telephone conversations of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo that were allegedly wiretapped and digitally altered.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita has personally asked DOTC Secretary Leandro Mendoza and the NTC "to do something about this so this can be prevented and at the same time cause an investigation as to why this happened."

Malacañang released on Monday two compact discs containing what it said was original telephone conversations of the President and another version that Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye claimed had been "spliced" to make it appear she was talking to an election official about the rigging of the May 2004 elections.

Bunye has claimed that the President had been talking to a political operative and not an elections official.

Copies of the CDs have been sent to the National Bureau of Investigation for examination.

Bunye alleged that a small group within the opposition was behind the wiretapping of the President's conversations.