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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Garci better off with Congress: Guv
By Danilo V. Adorador III
AS LAWMAKERS compete on which of the two chambers in Congress would have the first opportunity to grill former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, an administration governor here advised the latter to shun Senate.
Senator Rodolfo Biazon, who heads the Senate defense committee, has already summoned Garcillano to appear before his committee on December 8.
Biazon said his committee would hear the wiretapping controversy in which the ex-poll official and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo were allegedly heard talking to rig the 2004 elections.
House Speaker Jose de Venecia, meanwhile, said he would meet on Tuesday with the chairmen of the five committees that investigated the "Hello Garci" issue to discuss how to compel Garcillano to testify before the five committees.
Makati City Representative Teodoro Locsin Jr., chairman of the House committee on suffrage and electoral reforms, which is one of the five committees tasked to investigate the "Hello Garci" controversy, said he would move for the pullout of the arrest warrant issued by the Lower House against Garcillano.
But Camiguin Governor Pedro Romualdo said Garcillano was "better off avoiding Senate" since "the occupants there are hapless pretenders who make it a business to investigate in aid of re-election."
Romualdo who described the ex-poll official as a "personal friend," said Garcillano should appear on the Lower House joint committee, which earlier issued a warrant of arrest against him.
The joint committee is the proper venue for the "Hello Garci" inquiry, he said, as the controversial wiretapped material was "first played there."
"The joint committee's task should end and his (Garcillano) presence and testimony will consummate their investigation," he said adding that in contrast to the Senate, the joint committee is composed of levelheaded lawmakers.
"Kung moadto siya kang Pong Biazon na ma-pong pong gyud diya didto (he would be hammered there) because this senator is known of being fond with scoring pogi points," Romualdo said.
The governor, a staunch Arroyo ally, also castigated former Social Welfare secretary Dinky Soliman and described her as "traitor."
Soliman was here Saturday to speak before the local members of the Black and White Movement, which is calling for Vice President Noli de Castro to break away from Arroyo.
The Black and White movement is giving de Castro 100 days--to end on November 30, to bolt from the administration and join calls for Arroyo to resign.
Romualdo said Soliman should "stop spreading her venom" and that the former Cabinet official was only "driven by her ambitions to become a senator or a president." (With reports from Sunnex)
(November 29, 2005 issue)
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