CABANATUAN CITY — Senator Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III Friday laughed sarcastically over the recent spread of emails and text messages alleging that he was once diagnosed of having psychiatric problems, thus making him unfit to be the country's next President.

After speaking before thousands of Liberal Party supporters at Freedom Park here the other night, Aquino belied the allegation, saying it is part of his critics' grand plan to discredit him and his capacity to take the helm of Malacañang if elected on May 10.

"Anybody who reads it sees how ridiculous it is. Obviously it’s a plan (against me). They are so desperate they are not scraping a barrel. They are inventing a barrel from where they are scraping stories from. And anybody who will bother to read anything they said in the first place at the time will see that there is no logic in everything they wrote," Aquino said.

Aquino was referring to the anonymous email supposedly claiming a three-page medical report on his state of depression when he was still 36.

Aquino said the fact that the email article has no author and that the signatory of the supposed document from the Department of Psychology of the Ateneo de Manila University, Fr. Carmelo Caluag, S.J., has disowned knowledge of the files makes reacting on the issue a waste of time.

"I would gladly answer the issue if the article has an author for attribution. But as the texts and emails spread, no one has dared claimed authorship of the accusation because they know it is nonsense. So why will I comment on the issue and why will the media even tackle it," the apparently irate senator said.

"Earlier, the purported author has come up with a disclaimer, saying that wasn’t even his course in college. It’s not his specialty, why keep asking me this question? So are (the media) here to provide the truth or are you here to muddle the truth?" Aquino added, showing his being pissed off.

Meanwhile, Aquino's supporters and campaign volunteers posted online the statements issued by Ateneo and Fr. Caluag, denying the authenticity of the document dated 1996. "The document is false; no faculty member or other professional affiliated with the Psychology Department has ever conducted a psychiatric assessment of Senator Aquino.

"Moreover, Fr. Carmelo A. Caluag, whose name appears as the signatory in the psychiatric evaluation form, is not a psychologist or psychiatrist and was never affiliated with the Psychology Department.

The Department denounces this attempt to vilify a person’s character through the spreading of false information," the Ateneo's statement posted at noynoy.ph reads.