MANILA — Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista on Thursday disowned the text messages attributed to him, purportedly supporting Quezon City Rep. Winnie Castelo in the city’s vice mayoralty race in the mid-term elections next year.
The Office of the Mayor issued an urgent public advisory, citing that the security code of the cellphone of Bautista has been compromised.
This prompted Quezon City Police District (QCPD) director Chief Supt. Joselito Esquivel to tap its Anti-Cybercrime Team to conduct an investigation into the matter.
The text messages circulated to city residents read: “Support Winnie Castelo for vice mayor ng (of) QC”. The cellular phone number, which appeared on the text messages was that of Bautista.
The text messages purportedly coming from Bautista’s cellphone number have been circulating and being passed around.
In an ambush interview, Bautista vehemently denied sending such text messages.
“Neither did I send nor pass these,” he said.
The local chief executive also called on the public to disregard or ignore any similar messages appearing to have been sent from the cellphone of the city mayor.
“Huwag kayong maniwala sa ganyang mensahe buhat sa akin dahil may sindikatong pwedeng gawin ang lahat pero wala ka namang kinalaman (Please don’t believe in such kind of messages from me because there is a syndicate behind this, but you don’t know anything about),” he said. (/PNA)
