Lawmaker tells politicians: Stop muddling tape issue

First posted 01:26am (Mla time) Aug 15, 2005
By Michael Lim Ubac, Christine O. Avendaño
Inquirer News Service

SAYING the public had had enough, the vice chairman of the House justice committee yesterday appealed to politicians to stop “muddling” the “Hello Garci” tape controversy by presenting conflicting reports from expert witnesses.

“Let’s stop the battle of the tapes. Both camps are claiming that their authentication findings are better than the other. This is adding confusion to an already complicated situation,” Ilocos Sur Representative Salacnib Baterina said.

Baterina aired the appeal after opposition lawmakers denounced the claims of Environment Secretary Michael Defensor that the “Hello Garci” tapes submitted by the opposition in the impeachment proceedings against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo had been altered.

“[Let’s] give due respect to the committee’s impeachment hearings which already began last week,” said Baterina, adding: “The findings from both sides are under a cloud of doubt regardless of the strength of their technical experts because they were commissioned by partisans.

“It would be better if the administration and the opposition would allow the impeachment process to go on unimpeded by all this political noise.”

Baterina said the resort by both sides to publicity to build their cases for and against Ms Arroyo “was muddling the crucial issues to be tackled by the committee.”

Baterina, a lawyer, pointed out that though the impeachment process was inherently political in nature, there were still rules on procedure, evidence presentation and other key points that must be followed.

Taint of partisan politicking

Paramount to this was the need for committee work to proceed without the taint of partisan politicking that had been evident since the whole tape controversy began, he said.

Baterina said that even before the tapes could be subject to verification, the justice committee should first resolve whether these would be admissible as evidence “since all applicable statutes and laws and even firm constitutional provisions prohibit their introduction as evidence in any proceedings.”

“These are pernicious issues which must be resolved in a sober and responsible fashion,” he said.

House Minority Leader Francis Escudero said it would not be in the interest of anyone, including Ms Arroyo, “if the impeachment process failed.”

Closure needed

“This is the only constitutional process to ventilate the issues against PGMA (Ms Arroyo). I’m afraid the Filipino people might look for processes outside the constitutional framework in their search for the truth and to redress their grievances and provide closure to it,” said Escudero.

House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles said that although the nation was deeply divided, Ms Arroyo should not be tried in a court of public opinion.

“There’s a big difference between strictly legal proceedings and making results satisfy public opinion and interest … (It’s) hard to reconcile both because whichever way you go, the nation is deeply divided on the issue. We all want to know the truth but it will be illegal to use third degree or torture just to get the truth,” he said.

Only Dickey’s report

Defensor yesterday said he would present only the findings of American forensic audio expert Barry Dickey in the impeachment proceedings. He also confirmed that Dickey did not say in his findings that the tape he examined had been spliced.

According to him, Dickey only indicated there were anomalies in the two tracks of the tape that he tested.

Defensor said that when he said at his news conference on Friday that the tape had been spliced, he was referring to what Filipino audio engineers had said.

He said he did not intend to submit the findings of the Filipino audio experts to the House proceedings because these would “not stand in court” as they were not forensic experts, like Dickey.

No splicing

In Iloilo City, digital sound engineer Jonathan Tiongco yesterday agreed that Dickey did not really say in his report that the “Hello Garci” tape he examined had been “spliced.”

But Tiongco insisted that the tape had been tampered with.

“I do not have to be credible to say the truth about an exact science. I do not have to be credible to say the world is round,” he said in a media briefing.

Tiongco said he came home to Iloilo City to visit his 84-year-old father, lawyer Jose Tiongco, who collapsed on Thursday after reading new reports questioning his son’s credibility.

He said his father suffered a mild stroke.

Master tape needed

Tiongco, 35, maintained that the controversial tapes should not be made a basis to say that Ms Arroyo cheated in the elections.

“Without the original master tape or the undisturbed copy of the tape, the ‘Hello Garci’ tapes, in part or whole, cannot be certified by anyone as an original … as authentic,” he said.

Tiongco denied speculations that he offered to sell his report to both the administration and the opposition. “I want to make it clear that I’m not siding with the opposition or the administration.”

But he admitted that Defensor offered to hire his services in the event that Dickey certified that there was reason to believe that the recording had anomalies.

‘Yung dagdag, yung dagdag’

He maintained his earlier claim that one of the tapes’ tracks, in which Ms Arroyo was heard purportedly saying, “Yung dagdag, yung dagdag [the additional votes],” had been doctored.

Jim Sarthou, another audio engineer who was with Defensor at Friday’s press conference, disputed Tiongco’s claim.

Speaking on television with Defensor on Saturday, Sarthou said: “Let us forget technicalities. I am a recording engineer. I use my ears in my work at yung dagdag, baligtarin mo, bagalan mo, bilisan mo, sorry, Mr. Secretary, ang dinig ko dagdag pa rin (you can turn it over, slow it down, speed it up, what I heard was still ‘dagdag’).”

Reacting to Sarthou’s remarks, Tiongco said: “That’s his opinion and he is entitled to that. But he commented on something that he has never analyzed.”

Tiongco also lashed out at anticrime crusader Teresita Ang See who called him “an expert in fabricating evidence.”

He said Ang See had an ax to grind against him because he implicated her in the kidnap-slay of Betti Chua Sy last year.

“It’s a personal thing,” said Tiongco.