The Senate Session Hall’s air conditioning suddenly shut down on Monday due to a tripped circuit breaker, said the Senate maintenance office on Tuesday.

In a letter, the service chief of the Management Information Systems (MIS) Service and Maintenance Physical Facilities Service (MPFS) said the Aircon Maintenance Unit inspected the air-conditioning system on Senate premises and coordinated with the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS), where the Air Handling Unit’s (AHU) electrical panel boards’ power supply is housed.

“The GSIS informed the Senate that an electrical circuit breaker located at the GSIS tripped around 5:30 PM on the even date. Upon checking, some other AHUs on the Ground Floor and Third Floor experienced the same power issue,” the letter read.

The air-conditioning was restored around 6:20 p.m.

Meanwhile, the service chief denied the reported internet outage at the Session Hall on the same day.

“We confirm that there was NO disruption whatsoever of internet services at any given time, including 5:00 - 7:00 pm when the Session Hall was used,” he wrote in a separate letter addressed to the Senate secretary.

Moreover, the service chief said the wireless internet traffic was at its “peak” during the aforementioned period, the wireless access point located at the Session Hall logging the highest level of activity, indicating active connections and use of the network.

He added that if an internet outage had occurred, SMS and email alerts would have notified the service crew.

On Monday, the Minority senators had been waiting for two hours when the air conditioning abruptly shut down. On the same day, Senator Jinggoy Estrada surrendered to authorities and Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano called on members of the Minority to join the Majority in maintaining the Senate’s independence.