Source of SONA leak to suffer consequences, says Noynoy

MANILA, Philippines - President Aquino has assured the media that the “ax will fall” on whoever leaked the draft of his State of the Nation Address to a television network.

Speaking to reporters, Mr. Aquino said he didn’t want the media to get hold of the draft because last-minute revisions were then still being made on the SONA.

“I guarantee you there will be repercussions for those who have committed the SONA leak,” he said.

Mr. Aquino said the SONA was “very explosive” because it revealed billions in government funds found to have been misused.

Figures of expenses incurred by the previous administration had to be “checked, double checked, triple checked and quadruple checked” to ensure that the facts were right, he added.

Malacañang reporters suspect that Presidential Communications Group Secretary Ricky Carandang and Undersecretary Manuel Quezon III had something to do with the leak.

Carandang and Quezon served as anchors of the Lopez-controlled ABS-CBN television network.

Reporters also discovered that excerpts of Aquino’s SONA had been posted at the ANC Twitter account.

Web readers were also directed to the network’s Facebook account, where SONA lines were displayed, also almost in real-time. 

However, Carandang has refused to apologize, insisting he had nothing to do with it.

“I know I come in here with that perception, and I will do my best to make sure you know that it’s not going to be the case,” he said.

“I’ve tried to find out what happened there (SONA leak), if there were any lapses then we will correct that and we will make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Mr. Aquino himself had apologized to reporters for the alleged leak of a copy of his SONA.