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While there are a number of important matters
calendared for discussions in the Senate—the Japan-Philippines
Economic Partnership Agreement (Jpepa), the 2008 national budget,
and the Cheap Medicines Bill, to mention only a few—our honorable
senators have decided to reopen the investigation of the “Hello,
Garci” tape controversy.
Despite their gallant efforts,
the admittedly more eloquent and profound proadministration
senators were outnumbered by their counterparts in the opposition,
thus paving the way for restarting the probe on a worn-out issue
that has already been exhaustively investigated in the Senate and
the House of Representatives some two years ago.
Some of his detractors have
claimed, albeit unfairly, that opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson is a
genius in generating publicity for himself. Having failed to get the
chairmanship of the Senate blue-ribbon committee, he thought of
revisiting the Garci wiretapping incident, never mind if his prized
witness, T/Sgt. Vidal Doble, a former agent of the Intelligence
Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (Isafp), is a
discredited one.
In his video presentation, Lacson
portrayed Doble as the epitome of righteousness, saying that after
he left the military service, his witness is now willing to tell all
about the wiretapping incident.
But is Doble really a credible
witness?
When he first came into national
prominence in mid-2005, Doble admitted that he was paid P2 million
by former National Bureau of Investigation Deputy Director Samuel
Ong who claimed that he was in possession of the “mother of all
tapes.” Doble said later that he could have demanded P40 million
because of the “very damaging” effect of the tapes.
The Ong-Doble caper hogged the
headlines for many weeks in June and July 2005. It was complete with
twists, intrigues and romance. Ong, along with Doble and the
latter’s paramour, Marietta Santos, sought sanctuary at the San
Carlos Seminary in Makati City. From there, Doble was later turned
over to the military. Ong has disappeared and his whereabouts
unknown up to now.
Later, Doble’s girlfriend
Marietta regaled the Senate with intimate details about their
relationship and how she sauntered in and out of the Isafp
headquarters where Doble supposedly wiretapped the conversations
between President Arroyo and Garcillano. Then a new twist developed
as Doble’s legal wife Arlene appeared at the Court of Appeals
where she petitioned the court for the writ of habeas corpus
alleging that the Isafp was holding her husband against his will.
Our sources said that all these
were part of an elaborate opposition plot to force President Arroyo
to resign like what the late US President Richard Nixon did when he
was caught wiretapping his own top aides in the Watergate scandal in
the 1970s.
Circus coming to town
With the Senate’s reopening of
the Garci tape investigation, led by the Committee on National
Defense, we will have another circus coming to town. The senators
will again take turns questioning witnesses, not in aid of
legislation but in aid of their ambitions for 2010.
In the Thirteenth Congress,
particularly during the protracted investigation on jueteng
conducted by the Senate Committee on Public Order and Illegal Drugs
led by now Senate President Manuel Villar, several witnesses with
dubious characters became household names: Michaelangelo Zuce, Ador
Mawanay, Mary “Rosebud” Ong, Sandra Cam and Wilfredo Mayor.
Another witness, Eugenio “Udong” Mahusay, who was presented,
again by Lacson, in the Jose Pidal case, also became an instant
celebrity.
After so many hearings, using
public funds and official time that could have been used for the
enactment of important laws, nothing happened. I don’t even know
if the Villar committee has submitted an official report of the
hearings, and if there was, if a single piece of legislation came
out from that long drawn out investigation. Or if any of the
witnesses who were caught lying under oath, particularly those who
recanted their testimonies, have been charged with perjury.
The House has conducted its own
investigation into the Garcillano wiretapping case. During several
months of public hearings, the main protagonist—former Comelec
Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, who mysteriously reappeared for
the hearings—was subjected to intense but sometimes ludicrous
interrogation. But nothing happened except that two of the young
congressmen who were most vociferous in grilling Garcillano—Francis
Escudero and Alan Peter Cayetano—are now senators.
So, the Senate would reopen the
Garcillano tape scandal on Thursday? Go ahead, send in the clowns.
malinaolito@yahoo.com
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