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Saturday, August 13, 2005
Garci tapes lie, says Arroyo aide
MANILA -- The "Hello Garci" tapes in which President Arroyo allegedly asked an election official to ensure her one-million vote margin in last year's polls were spliced and "full of lies."
In a press conference Friday, Environment Secretary Michael Defensor said he had sent two tracks from the tapes--at the heart of an impeachment complaint against the President--to Barry G. Dickey, a forensic expert in Arlington, Texas-based Audio Evidence Lab.
"Yes, it is the voice of the President, but that is not the President talking," he said. "It is an electronic and digital manipulation to link the President to cheating and rigging the elections."
The opposition pounced on Defensor and belittled his claim, as Senator Panfilo Lacson dared the secretary to have the tape and other recordings authenticated by an independent firm.
In an Aug. 2 report made public by Defensor, Dickey declared that "several anomalies exist which question the integrity" of the recordings.
Dickey, who has consulted with US news networks on purported recordings of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, said he needed more time to "render conclusive results."
Defensor said he spent $3,500 of his own money to pay for Dickey's analysis.
In the same news conference, Defensor said Filipino audio technician Jonathan Tiongco also attested that the controversial phrase in the tape "yung dagdag, yung dagdag" were taken from original words "gal ban binalbag" that were compressed and made to play at a faster speed before it was added to the recording.
The samples were taken from the tapes of lawyer Alan Paguia, who is allied with former president Joseph Estrada. The tapes were the ones played in a joint House hearing last month.
Defensor said the findings could be used by the President's legal team in the impeachment trial to disprove the charges.
Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. lashed out at Defensor "for making dimwits out of Filipinos" by convincing them the tape was doctored when the President herself had already admitted it was her voice in the tape.
Arroyo has apologized for a "lapse in judgment" in calling an election official before results were announced, but has denied she won the election through fraud and steadfastly refused to step down.
She has not identified the election officer she spoke with but the opposition says it was former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, who has gone into hiding.
The opposition said Defensor was trying to confuse the public.
"They want to stop the impeachment before the evidence is presented," said Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano, spokesman for the impeachment team. "They fear that after the evidence is presented...the people will believe that the President stole, cheated and lied."
House Minority Leader Francis Escudero said they are not questioning the credibility of Dickey, but the environment secretary might have spliced the tapes before he submitted it for analysis.
"Of course, the finding of Mr. Dickey would be like that if he studied tapes that were already altered," he said in a television interview.
Escudero said Defensor should wait for the House committees investigating the wiretapping scandal to authenticate the tapes because it was agreed that the authentication will only be undertaken on a government-to-government basis in order not to confuse the people.
Cavite Representative Gilbert Remulla, lead chair of the House investigating panel, said they will discuss on Monday a plan to submit the tapes given by Paguia to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US for verification.
The House justice committee is set to begin hearings on Arroyo's impeachment case next week to determine whether any of the three complaints is "sufficient in form and substance" and can be sent to the Senate for trial.
Senator Lacson, for his part, challenged Defensor that he will submit his tapes that were earlier declared by Australia audio expert as "authenticated" to Dickey for further authentication. If it is proven that the tapes are altered and spliced, Lacson said he will apologize to the President and stop attacking the Arroyo administration.
He will also ask the proponents of the impeachment complaint to withdraw the case.
But if it is proven that the tapes are genuine, Lacson said Defensor should ask the President to step down.
Defensor accepted the senator's challenge to submit his tapes to Dickey but he refused to accept the dare to ask the President to resign if Lacson's tapes were proven authentic. (Sun.Star Cebu/AP/Sunnex)
(August 13, 2005 issue)
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