Malacañang did not backtrack or flip-flopped, Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo said on Friday, adding that he did not withdraw any statement about a diagram that purportedly linked journalists to a plot to oust President Rodrigo Duterte.
In a Palace press briefing last April 22, Panelo said the source of the so-called matrix was the Office of the President. However, Panelo said on Thursday, May 2, that the information about the said matrix came from an anonymous source. This prompted the Palace official to issue a clarification.
“It is extremely ludicrous that some members of the media tweaked my statements made in the course of the press briefing yesterday, May 2, putting the impression that there was backtracking of my original announcement that the source of the matrix is President Rodrigo Roa Duterte,” Panelo said in a statement.
“The subject matrix was released during the press briefing last April 22. During this briefing, I categorically said: ‘The source of that is from the Office of the President, from the President himself.’ I stand by this,” he added.
However, the Palace official argued that “I never mentioned that the matrix was handed to me in person by the President during the press briefing on April 22. And that is only what I affirmatively confirmed during the press briefing yesterday. I did not backtrack or flip-flop,” he added, noting that the transcripts for both the briefings mentioned in the given dates are available for public scrutiny.
Panelo, the President’s chief legal counsel, explained that “once and for all,” that the source of the matrix is the President, who called him with “the instruction to touch and discuss it” during the April 22 briefing.
“A matrix was thereafter forwarded to my phone, obviously upon the instruction of the President. The number of the sender of the diagram is not listed in my phone directory. Regardless from whatever number it was sent, I can assure that the matrix sent to me came from the President,” Panelo said.
“The sender must be one of the staff in the Office of the President. Considering, as well, the fact that the President did not correct or rectify what was released only means that it was the matrix being referred to by the President,” he added.
Panelo also allayed concerns about the matrix copies of the Manila Times and his office, saying such concerns are “trivial as the matrix published therein and the one sent to me is one and the same.”
“Our office has access to a clearer matrix that can also be obtained online apart from what was published in the Manila Times, and we decided to use that one instead of printing the one sent to my phone which was unclear,” he said, saying that he made clear to the Malacañang Press Corps that “there is only one matrix.”
As for the issue on why did he not verify the information coming from an unknown number before presenting it to the public, the Palace official said: “I have stated that I was not part of the team which obtained the information that led to the crafting of the matrix and thus, talking about and explaining the same would only amount to hearsay.”
“Knowing the President, however, as a man of intellect and a probing and thinking Chief Executive, he will not order the release of any information without proper vetting. This is clear when I said during Apr. 22 briefing that the President will not order the release of anything if he has not validated the same,” Panelo said.
Panelo added that “It appears that there is a desperate move to taint the legitimacy of the subject matrix.”
“We will let them be. As for us, it is our duty to inform the public, for they have the right to know, that there are plans to overthrow the President and that we will protect him and this Administration to make good our vow to the electorate of delivering genuine and meaningful change to the citizenry,” he added.
As this developed, Senator Panfilo Lacson described as “unfair” the release of the alleged matrix implicating some personalities, including journalists, who are supposedly behind the plot to destabilizd the current government and oust the president.
Lacson assailed the publication of the alleged “destabilization matrix” without being validated.
“I don’t think it’s fair. Because in the first place by their own admission, the matrix also came from Malacañang,” said Lacson.
“And it was published without proper validation. And as it turns out, there was something wrong in the matrix,” he added.
Liberal Party President Sen. Francis Pangilinan said there was no need to prove the matrix.
“Read between the lines. How would you prove something which was merely invented? We feel that this is again created to divert the attention,” said Pangilinan.
He said that that the matrix came out at the time when there were accusations against the President and his family.
“They did this before when there was a problem on rice, there was the Red October plot allegedly by the LP, but that was denied by the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” said the opposition leader.
He said that it has become a pattern that every time there was an accusation, the government will create a scenario that there is an ouster plot.
The supposed matrix involved journalist Ellen Tordesillas of Vera Files who allegedly uploaded the “Ang Totoong Narcolist” videos and fed it to other media organizations Rappler and Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), and the National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL).
However, those implicated in the matrix claimed that the accusation was false, with PCIJ even saying that some of the personnel listed in the document were no longer with them, while some performed in a capacity not linked to journalism.