COMELEC TO GARCI: PLS COME OVER, HELP US / 2005 HELLO GARCI SPECIAL REPORT
MANILA, JULY 22, 2011 (STAR) By Jun Pasaylo – Commission on Elections Chairman Sixto Brillantes today urged former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano (PHOTO IN 2005), the main player in the "Hello, Garci" scandal, to come out and help in the probe on alleged massive fraud in previous elections.
"Commissioner Garcillano please come over and help us now. Anyway, we are conducting a different investigation now, may be you can help," Brillantes announced during a press briefing at the Comelec office this afternoon.
Brillantes said that in the past he has been able to talk to Garcillano over the phone, but as of now, he has become out of reach. "I was in contact with him before, but right now he is not answering [phone calls]," he added.
[PHOTO of GARCI recently from Wikipedia: Garcillano was missing as he is suspected to be in hiding, initially abroad but recently in the country. He issued statements denying election rigging and admitted that he called the President. In December 2006, Garcillano was cleared of perjury charges by the Department of Justice. In May 2007 he ran as Representative of the First Congressional District of Bukidnon but he lost to Candido Pancrudo, Jr. of Lakas-CMD. Report from SunStar Tuesday, (July 19, 2011) Senator Ping Lacson, who lost the 2004 presidential elections to now Rep. Gloria Arroyo, said "I hope that the troika – namely Lintang Bedol, Zaldy Ampatuan and Virgilio Garcillano – will collaborate and cooperate together in favor of the truth about the mockery of our country's electoral process as institutionalized by Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo," Troika is Russian for "three". Finding the truth "may not cure the fraudulent Arroyo presidency" but might put the former President, now Pampanga representative, in prison for election sabotage." Lacson further stated.
Brillantes said that the Comelec has already started conducting investigations and gathering evidence to determine if there is enough evidence on allegations that massive election cheating took place in 2007 and in 2004.
He said Garcillano can help the Comelec in so far as the 2004 elections is concerned being the main player in the "Hello, Garci" scandal, which pertains to wiretapped conversations between the former election officer and former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the 2004 presidential election.
Brillantes, meanwhile, clarified that the Comelec's law office has to resolve first a legal issue regarding the possibility of investigating the former president in connection with the 2004 elections.
He said that based on the law, indicting a person for an election offense prescribes five years after it was committed.
However, he said that he believes that on the case of former President Arroyo, the five-year count should start when her term expired on June 2010.
"When GMA was president, you cannot file any case criminally [against her] because she was immune, but I believe that the count for the prescription should start June 30 of 2010 because that is the only time that you can file a case against her," Brillantes explained.
2007 election sabotage
Meanwhile, Brillantes said the former President Arroyo may still be held liable for election sabotage if suspended ARMM governor Zaldy Ampatuan's testimony would corroborate former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol's claim.
Bedol had claimed that he was involved in vote-padding and –shaving operations in Maguindanao in 2007 on orders of Mrs. Arroyo.
He said that Mrs. Arroyo and her husband, former first gentleman Mike Arroyo, wanted to shave votes for then Tarlac Rep. Benigno Aquino III, Alan Peter Cayetano and Panfilo Lacson and pad the votes to members of the then administration senatorial ticket, including incumbent Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri.
Brillantes said that he will try to contact Ampatuan's lawyer, Howard Calleja, and get the signed affidavit of the Maguindanao massacre suspect.
"That is a very important affidavit because it will be the connecting link between Bedol and the former president," he said, adding that Bedol's testimonies would remain as hearsay without Ampatuan's corroborating testimony.
However, Brillantes said that the Comelec would need to make sure that Ampatuan's testimony is based on first-hand account, explaining that it would also be considered as hearsay if the suspended regional governor's supposed knowledge on the election cheating came from another person or his father, Andal Ampatuan Sr.
At the press conference, Brillantes clarified that the Comelec is just on the initial stages of its investigation. He said they were still trying to collate evidence, including testimonies, to get a "clearer picture" of the supposed massive cheating in the 2004 and 2007 elections.
"It's too early to say. We still have to determine if there are basis for that," he said when asked when the Comelec may start the preliminary investigation.
He also clarified that only through the preliminary investigation they will know who are the persons should be charged or held liable for election sabotage or simple election offense.
He said that the Comelec will also try to get affidavits of two municipal election officers and a computer technician, who are now being secured by the Department of Interior and Local Government.
Brillantes said that based on initial information from the DILG, the three new witnesses did not implicate Mrs. Arroyo in their testimony.
He said that what's clear as of now is that Bedol should be guilty of election sabotage, since he had admitted in his affidavit that he had direct participation in the vote rigging operations. -- with Angelo L. Gutierrez
EARLIER (2005) RELATED REPORT
Special Issue on the Arroyo-Garcillano tape scandal,
which includes a full transcript and a list of the cast
of characters in The Tapes.
VIRGILIO GARCILLANO: The man whose voice is heard on The Tapes is an expert in election fraud. by SHEILA S. CORONEL
FRAUD EXPERT. Virgilio Garcillano used his skills and experiece to manipulate the 2004 count.
VIRGILIO Garcillano will go down in history as the election official whose wiretapped conversations mortally wounded a president. He disappeared from public view in the second week of June, as the controversy over the wiretaps heated up, and many may have a hard time recalling what he looks like. Yet his raspy voice, distinctive lisp, and thick Visayan accent are now embedded in the audio memory of millions of Filipinos who have listened to the "Garci" tapes.
It is unlikely Garcillano would ever live this down or that he would be able to return again to the Commission on Elections (Comelec). Already, the damage his recorded phone calls have caused, not only to the Comelec but also to the presidency, is so severe and so devastating, both these institutions have to undergo massive cleansing if they are to recover their credibility and respectability.
Philippine elections are complex. The manual voting, counting, and canvassing are governed by arcane rules. There are for example, 28 rules just on the appreciation of ballots. And that's just one small section of the Omnibus Election Code, a huge ton)e guaranteed to give the reader migraine. The section on prohibited offenses alone is mind-boggling.
The law, therefore, abounds with procedural minefields awaiting those who are ignorant of it. But Garcillano honed his skills and his knowledge of election laws and procedures through his long years in the poll body. He also developed an extensive network of contacts, especially in Mindanao, where he was assigned.
Garcillano's life was the Comelec, the very office that he helped destroy. He joined the agency as a lawyer in 1961, when he was only in his mid-20s. Except for a six-year gap from 1986 to 1993, when he was purged by the leadership of the post-Marcos commission, he served at the Comelec continuously until he dropped out of sight last month.
He had risen up the ranks, eventually retiring as director for Region 10 (Northern Mindanao) in 2002. Thanks to Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, he was appointed commissioner on February 11, 2004, just as the presidential campaign was kicking off.
A TECHNOCRAT OF FRAUD
Garcillano was an election technocrat, a career bureaucrat with specialized skills in a specific sphere of government. These skills are invaluable for the efficient administration of elections. But they can also be used for more sinister purposes. As the "Garci" tapes revealed and as those who know him well say, the commissioner was a master fraud operator who used his knowledge of election laws and procedures, his long field experience, and his extensive network of contacts to rig the vote in favor of President Arroyo, Senator Robert Barbers, and a few other local politicians.
"He was the plotter for electoral fraud, the overall supervisor and commander in chief," says a Comelec official who asked not to be named. "He was working for GMA."
"He set up the infrastructure for cheating," says Sen. Aquilino Pimentel, who has heard the "Garci" recording and who led the opposition protest against alleged vote rigging in the 2004 elections. "He was the operator for Gloria. He knew how the cheating was done in Mindanao and he manipulated the vote so GMA's lead would not be less than one million."
In an interview with journalists on June 7, just days before his mysterious disappearance, Garcillano denied all these allegations and insisted it was not his voice on the tape. But several Comelec officials interviewed by the PCIJ as well as former Comelec chair Christian Monsod confirm it is indeed Garcillano's voice that is in the recording. Moreover, Garcillano identified himself in several of the wiretapped conversations and also spoke to various individuals — his wife Grace, his secretary Ellen Peralta, and his maid Lyn — whose connection to him cannot be denied.
Still, while Garcillano is almost surely the one on the tape, he was probably not the overall fraud strategist. That role probably belonged to other aides of the president. His specialty was postelection fraud in Mindanao. As reported elsewhere and as alleged by the opposition, the rigging of the 2004 vote took place in many parts of the country, and was particularly intense in Cebu, Iloilo, and Bohol. Mindanao may have been typecast as the arena for fraud, but the reality is that candidates cheat where they are strongest and where the manipulation would be less obvious.
Mindanao, however, was Garcillano's particular area of expertise, and he was probably appointed for this reason. It also happened that Mindanao was the arena of contention between the administration and the opposition. While the surveys had indicated that Luzon would likely go for Fernando Poe Jr., and the Visayas, for Arroyo, Mindanao was up for grabs. Its votes were likely to deliver the winning margin, and it was apparently Garcillano's role to make sure that margin went to the President.
The wiretapped recordings, which start on May 17, 2004, a week after elections, and end on June 18, give little indication of Garcillano's role during the election campaign and the actual voting. It is, however, a treasure trove for uncovering the postelection manipulation of the results. It is apparent from the conversations that Garcillano was the orchestrator, the conductor of a symphony of fraud, at least for Mindanao. He was the one coordinating the workings of elections officials on the ground, Comelec officials in Manila, and the military and the police, which are "deputized" or placed under the authority of the Comelec for the duration of the elections.
In other words, the very individuals and institutions that were supposed to guard the ballot were actually the very same ones manipulating the count. Garcillano was thus not the sole culprit: he was at the hub of a network of fraud that included scores, if not hundreds, of other government officials and employees.
THE MOST POWERFUL COMMISSIONER
But Garcillano was one of the most crucial parts of that network. His rise to become, in the words of one Comelec insider, "the most powerful commissioner in Comelec" — eclipsing even Chairman Benjamin Abalos — was largely due to his election expertise and experience. At 68, and with 40 years of election experience behind him, Garcillano had a far more comprehensive knowledge of election procedures than his other colleagues in the agency. The other commissioners deferred to him because of this, as well as his seniority and his perceived closeness to Malacañang. In addition, he was an assertive figure who knew how to exercise power while getting along superbly with the others. It was then no surprise that he eventually overshadowed Abalos, a lackadaisical and lackluster Comelec chief who was not very familiar with election laws.
"He really knew the law and the process," Monsod said, referring to Garcillano, in a recent television interview, "and he was very good at interpersonal relations."
For sure, the commissioner was popular among Comelec employees. As election boss in Northern Mindanao, he was famous for treating his staff to overseas trips and for organizing athletic competitions with big prizes solicited from politicians. He was popular at the main office in Intramuros as well. Garcillano liked to drink and to socialize with the Comelec staff, and managed to cement friendships with many of them during those drinking sessions. (In one of the recorded conversations, his wife reprimands him for drinking with his colleagues even in the afternoon.) He was such an amiable boss and colleague that some of the elections personnel whose conversations with Garcillano were recorded in the wiretaps referred to him as "Tatay" or "'Tay" (dad). With his thinning hair and soft facial features, he even looked the part of a doting father.
"He was very friendly," says a Comelec official, "and he loves to lead a group, he takes the initiative."
By being Mr. Congeniality, Garcillano was able to pinpoint compliant elections officials and persuade them, through gifts and other inducements, to do his bidding. Indeed, even prior to his appointment as Comelec commissioner, Garcillano had already earned a reputation for being a master of dagdag-bawas or vote padding and shaving operations. These entail tampering with the results of the municipal or provincial canvass. This is wholesale fraud, and is consequently more efficient than the retail doctoring of the count at the precinct level.
Sen. Pimentel, for one, says that even during the Marcos era, Garcillano was already "a known partisan operator of whoever was in power at that time." Pimentel has accused Garcillano not only of involvement in dagdag-bawas operations but also of distributing money in previous elections to Comelec officials from the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao.
All these qualities made Garcillano perfect for the role he was to play in the 2004 elections. Although he became a commissioner only three months before the polls, he was soon taking on a lot of tasks, including vetting appointments, even of utility personnel, say Comelec insiders. Before long, he had a say in who was going to be named to man election posts in sensitive areas. It eventually came to the point that all memos issued by Abalos passed through Garcillano. By election time, he was acting as the Comelec's de facto chair, says an elections official. He was therefore in a position to orchestrate large-scale, institutional fraud.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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