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Saturday, June 18, 2005
Sienes: We deserve to be told the truth
By Cris G. Sienes
Different Strokes
'By all means, let them look into the illegal wiretapping activity hide and hair. Let there be no whitewash. Let the truth come out no matter who gets hurt.'
AFTER all the hullabaloo about the audiotape purportedly featuring President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo urging a Comelec official to rig the results of the 2004 presidential election, one intriguing question remains: Who did the electronic eavesdropping on the President's conversation with the Comelec official?
To be sure, it was not the whistleblower Samuel Ong. While Ong admitted publicly that he was the source of the audiotape, he explained that the master tape was simply given to him by a military intelligence personnel who told him that they were ordered to bug the telephones of several government people, including that of a Comelec official. Rear Admiral Tirso Danga, deputy chief for intelligence of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, quickly denied Ong's statement. Among other others, Danga said that it is not the job of the ISAFP to conduct wiretapping and that it lacks the capability to do such an activity. Furthermore, no tape is missing from the ISAFP's files.
However, military insiders belied Danga's denial. They told reporters that the ISAFP was involved in "massive wiretapping operations" before, during, and after last year's presidential election. ISAFP agents reportedly bugged the telephones of people in the government whose loyalty to the administration was under question, including Comelec commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.
The top political leadership allegedly ordered the bugging of Garcillano's telephone because the administration party suspected Garcillano of being a vulnerable target for the opposition for election fraud purposes. It was just unfortunate that the President called up Garcillano, so her conversation with the Comelec official was picked up and recorded by the bugging device.
What was not made clear was the exact conversation between the President and Garcillano. One of the two tapes sent to Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye's office was reportedly "doctored."
Danga's statement that the ISAFP lacks the capability to conduct electronic eavesdropping was also debunked by a senior military officer who requested anonymity. The senior military officer averred that the ISAFP has electronic bugging equipment which includes a cellular phone interceptor. The cellphone interceptor was the latest addition to ISAFP's bugging equipment and that Malacañang even paid for it to the tune of P40 million.
Military insiders also said that the sophisticated cellular phone interceptor was moved away from Camp Aguinaldo at the height of last year's election campaign.
Meanwhile, some 120 operatives of Military Intelligence Group 21 (MIG-21) of ISAFP were ordered confined to barracks at the AFP headquarters at Camp Aguinaldo. The grounded agents were reportedly directly involved in the technical aspect of the intelligence gathering of MIG-21, including high profile electronic eavesdropping operations.
The suspension of the intelligence agents came as an offshoot of the allegedly bugged telephone conversation which purportedly featured the President urging a Comelec official to ensure her victory in last year's presidential election.
Given all the above, would Danga persist in saying that it is not the job of the ISAFP to do wiretapping; that it wasn't ordered to conduct wiretapping activities; that it lacks the capability to conduct electronic eavesdropping operations?
Like we keep saying here, there are always two sides to an issue, the side of the accuser, and the side of the accused. Sometimes there is even a third side - the truth. Is there perhaps a third side to all these allegations and counter allegations? If there is, we hope we'll know it soon. Both the Department of Justice and the House of Representatives will conduct separate probes into the reported wiretapping activity.
By all means, let them look into the illegal wiretapping activity hide and hair. Let there be no whitewash. Let the truth come out no matter who gets hurt. The Filipino people deserve the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Point to ponder: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." (Theme of the James Cagney movie, "A Lion in the Streets." Quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, but not found in his writings)
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (June 18, 2005 issue)
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