Solon links ex-Isafp chief to audio tape
Officer seen as 'central character in drama'

First posted 11:54pm (Mla time) June 14, 2005
By Philip C. Tubeza, Michael Lim Ubac
Inquirer News Service

Editor's Note: Published on Page A1 of the June 15, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer

THE NAME of the Armed Forces of the Philippines' deputy chief of staff for intelligence has been linked by an administration lawmaker to the audio tape purporting to show that President Macapagal-Arroyo rigged the results of last year's presidential election.

"I believe Admiral Danga is a central character in this drama," Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez said yesterday in a statement. It was a reference to Commodore Tirso Danga, who was head of the Intelligence Service of the AFP (Isafp) during the May 2004 elections, and who, according to Golez, had recruited the Isafp officers now suspected of tapping the President's phone conversations.

As deputy chief of staff for intelligence (J-2), Danga, 54, has supervision over the Isafp. He could not be contacted for comment.

"What was his agenda? Who was he working for? Where was his loyalty?" said Golez, chair of the House committee on defense and former national security adviser of Ms Arroyo.

Reached on the phone, Golez declined to give details of Danga's alleged involvement in the wiretap of Ms Arroyo's supposed phone conversations with Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

"I don't want to comment on that, but my information is that he was the one who assigned to Isafp some officers and enlisted personnel who were part of the 1989 coup attempt [against President Corazon Aquino], and who are now suspected as the perpetrators of the wiretapping, if such a wiretapping actually happened," he said.

Danga himself is listed among the officers involved in that failed putsch.

Golez said he would have Danga invited to the planned House inquiry into the tape scandal.

Postponement

The initial hearing was scheduled to start today. But House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles decided to move it to next week, drawing loud protests from Minority Leader Francis Escudero and Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla.

Escudero, who had earlier asked the House to look into the tape scandal and join the "people's collective search for the truth," said the House leadership should not kowtow to Malacañang.

Remulla, chair of the House committee on public information that, along with the committees on national defense, public order and security, electoral reform, and information communications technology, will conduct the inquiry, said he was not even consulted about the postponement.

Invitations were sent out as early as Thursday to the Isafp, AFP, Department of Justice, National Bureau of Investigation, National Telecommunications Commission, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Efren Abu, Garcillano and his secretary, and lawyer Alan Paguia.

It was Bunye who, on June 6, played to reporters two CD copies of the supposed taped conversations between the President and Garcillano. On June 7, Paguia, a former lawyer of ousted President Joseph Estrada, released his own two tapes of the alleged incriminating conversations.

Remulla also said ex-NBI Deputy Director Samuel Ong, who had claimed to have the "mother of all tapes," and TSgt. Vidal Doble of the Isafp, the supposed source of the tape, would be invited to the inquiry.

Executive session

Nograles said that instead of a public hearing, the five House committees that would conduct the investigation would meet in executive session today to decide on the "ground rules, procedures, legal status, witnesses, details."

"We have to first lay down the ground rules," he said in the course of denying that the House leadership was trying to block the investigation. "The witnesses we've invited would be of no use if we quarrel over the rules during the public hearing."

Golez said the hearing was postponed because a number of congressmen had sent word that they would not be able to attend today's hearing.

"I am disappointed that the wiretapping hearing was postponed. But I understand that many members of pertinent committees were not available on short notice," he said, adding that Nograles had informed him about the postponement.

But Escudero was unimpressed.

"Subukan nila (Let them try)," he said, adding:

"Nograles and Golez cannot decide on their own to postpone the hearing. It was set by the plenary. They are not Congress.

"I don't believe Golez's claim that he is saddened by the postponement. It's his call. He cannot say the reason was a lack of quorum because from the beginning, his committee hearings have had no quorum. They have always dispensed with the roll call," he said.

Legitimate process

Escudero urged his colleagues in the majority to assert their independence and not bow to Malacañang's wishes.

"They think they are pleasing Malacañang, but what they are doing is blocking a legitimate process that should be pursued instead of the people going to the streets," he said.

Nograles had said that the tapes could not be used in a legislative hearing because this was prohibited by the Anti-Wiretapping Law.

But Escudero had said that the tapes should be played because it had yet to be confirmed that they contained the incriminating conversations.

In a phone interview, Remulla said: "I'm not taking pleasure in his [Nograles'] going over my head in this issue without consulting me formally.

"And why such a keen interest in wanting to postpone [the hearing], delay it? Normally, the majority leader doesn't meddle in committee hearings, but now [he's displaying] very keen interest in this."

Remulla said the executive session was actually his idea. However, he said, this did not mean that the initial hearing would be shelved.

He said that since the matter was first referred to his committee by the committee on rules chaired by Nograles himself, "parliamentary practice dictates that the public information committee will be the lead [panel] in the inquiry."

Remulla also said the committee on information communications technology had backed out of the inquiry.

"The chair, Rep. Simeon Kintanar of Cebu, does not want to participate," he said.

'Original tape'

NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco said the bureau was "searching for the original tape so we can request civilian experts and the [US] Federal Bureau of Investigation to compare it with the tampered ones."

"It would be a shame to ask the FBI to analyze a tampered tape," he said.

Responding to former Sen. Francisco Tatad's earlier comment that the voice on the tape had a "strong similarity" to that of Ms Arroyo, Wycoco said: "We will not debate with... Tatad on what he wants to hand out as a press release, but you cannot compare a tampered thing with an original one."