Bugging device found at former President’s telephone line was working

By Ronron
May 4, 2007

Investigators from the Quezon City Police District (QCPD) said on Friday that the recovered bugging device from the telephone line of former President Corazon Aquino is real.

Supt. Frank Mabanag, chief of the QCPD Criminal Investigation and Detection Unit (CIDU), said in a phone interview that they already played the tape found inside the cassette recorder and heard conversations of Aquino, her daughter Balsy and some unidentified callers.

“They were just talking about Noynoy’s senatorial bid, and then were well-wishers,” Mabanag said of the nature of the conversation that was recorded.

Noynoy, or Benigno III, is Aquino’s only son who is running under the Genuine Opposition senatorial slate this May 14 polls.

Mabanag said only a very small portion of the 120-minute long blank tape captured a voice recording. He said they have yet to find out why. Aquino handed the tape to police late Wednesday.

“I have asked my men to transcribe the entire recorded conversation,” Mabanag said.

As regards the actual tape recording device, Mabanag said they have yet to actually test it since they could not find a 40-volt power supply.

He described the black box attached to the cassette tape recorder as the supplier of power that was connected to the battery inside the cabinet box where the device was found last May 2nd.

“But based on the tape conversation, we can say that it was really working,” Mabanag said of the device.

Mabanag said they have already taken the statements of four employees of PLDT, including the maintenance crew who actually discovered and removed the device at around 3pm last Wednesday from the cabinet box located along Times Street in Quezon City.

Based on their statements, he said they found out that more than 30 repairmen have access to the box at any given time.

Mabanag said they maintain their theory that the person who placed the bugging device could be an employee of PLDT because there were no signs of forcible opening of the cabinet box.

He said that if the company is able to provide them with a list of all persons with the key to said box, they would of course investigate them all.

Mabanag lamented that it could be difficult to trace the repairmen who opened the cabinet prior to May 2nd because the company has no logbook for their dispatch of personnel.

Mabanag said they will continue to investigate the matter as long as there are new information that arrive./DMS