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Thursday, June 30, 2005
Wenceslao: Time for a ‘truth commission’
By Bong O. Wenceslao
It sounds and feels faked, so it won’t happen. I am referring to President Arroyo’s hope that the issue will go away after she finally talked on national television about the “Garci tapes.” One can’t go to the next process before the first one has fully played out. In this controversy, the process will end only after the public has gotten the truth.
The President’s virtual admission that she was the woman in the wiretapped telephone conversations with then Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano is, frankly, merely skimming the surface. It raised more questions requiring clear answers. For starters, was she, like she said, merely checking her score or was she cheating?
That can only be done with a re-examination of the contents of the tapes, as I suggested earlier, to ferret out the truth and to punish those who cheated. This is the one chance we can finally nail big-time cheats, and straighten a bit the electoral process. Thus, I am for the setting up of an independent commission or a “truth commission.”
Forming such a body, however, is very tricky. Who, for example, will take the lead in choosing its members? If it will be a private sector initiative, how can the group summon witnesses or gather evidences if those concerned won’t cooperate? Anyway, I insist this is still the better option, if only people can find ways to make this idea feasible.
I agree with the President’s defenders that one can’t be conclusive that she cheated if one considers alone her wiretapped conversations with Garcillano. But one cannot separate those conversations with those that Garcillano made with other people. Overall, one would readily get the impression there that a special operation was in place.
It would be interesting, then, to identify and summon these other people, compare whatever information can be found in their talk with Garcillano with what happened in the field and reconstruct the picture of the operation piece by piece. I am particularly concerned, for example, with how election officials can do dagdag-bawas.
In the end, the commission may or may not find the President guilty of cheating. If it does, then the next step will already be up to the appropriate body or to the people. If it doesn’t, then full closure.
But beyond that, and this is more important, ways to prevent a repeat of such an unfortunate episode in our electoral process must be put in place.
TEXTREAX. This one is from Akbayan: “When the institution of the state that is supposed to protect the sanctity of the vote is the one committing wholesale fraud on the instructions of the President and her husband, that is criminal and contemptuous of our democracy. President Arroyo should resign to spare our country from prolonged instability.”
(khanwens@yahoo.com/ 0927-2055064)
(June 30, 2005 issue)
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