email - PHP mail: how to override or bypass mail.log setting

phpinfo() returns this particular setting which is problematic:

mail.log    /var/log/phpmail.log

The problem is I can't access the phpmail.log file to set the right CHMOD permissions on it, so my error_log is filling up with the following error each time a mail() fires off:

PHP Warning:  mail(/var/log/phpmail.log): failed to open stream: Permission denied

If it's at all possible I'd like to skip logging altogether. Otherwise, define a different log file that I can, you know, actually manipulate.

ps - this is not a duplicate of some other thread. I can't go changing the CHMOD values of above mentioned files, my question is about overriding a setting to skip email logging altogether.