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Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Ex-poll official Garci back in Mindanao, wife says
By Danilo V. Adorador III and Stephen Capillas
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY -- Controversial former Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner Virgilio Garcillano is now roaming around Mindanao after returning from a trip abroad, his wife Grace said in a television interview Tuesday.
According to information disclosed by the broadcast giant, the former Comelec commissioner's wife also debunked rumors that he had died. She said her husband is very much alive and in good health.
In Manila, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's executive secretary, Eduardo Ermita, said he knows nothing about the whereabouts of the former election official, who allegedly conspired with the President on rigging the 2004 presidential elections.
Ermita did not take seriously questions on Senator Panfilo Lacson's claim that Garcillano is back in the country and had been sighted in Mindanao.
The television report in Cagayan de Oro said Garcillano would surface "only at the proper time" when an "unedited version" of the "Hello Garci" CD would be unveiled before the public.
Grace is said to have arrived in Cagayan de Oro just recently. She issued the clarification amid rumors that Arroyo and Garcillano met again in Mindanao.
Grace, however, declined to comment when asked by the local ABS-CBN crew if she and the former official went abroad.
An earlier ABS-CBN report said Grace and her husband had just come from abroad.
"He is in the country but I cannot tell you where he is now. He is moving around. He is very much alive and healthy," she told ABS-CBN's Ricky Carandang.
She also said some top political opposition figures called up Garcillano and mentioned a "persistent lady caller" but did not divulge her identity or the contents of the phone conversation.
Both Garcillano and his wife, who reside at one of the subdivisions in Cagayan de Oro, intimated that they are tired of hiding around and want to clear up matters in order to defend their reputation.
Mayor Vicente Emano earlier claimed that Garcillano was currently writing a book that would reveal the names of all politicians who asked his help during his stint as election official.
He said he managed to talk to one of Garcillano's close friends who told him about the ex-Comelec commissioner's current endeavor.
Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. also dared Garcillano to name the top political opposition figures that he talked to during the elections.
"Also if he is gone for a long time it is possible that he may have been coached into saying what should be said," Pimentel said.
The Bureau of Immigration also denied any complicity in allegations that Garcillano managed to travel abroad with their cooperation saying the former Comelec commissioner did not pass through them. (Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro/With JMR/Sunnex)
(November 23, 2005 issue)
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