‘5 senators sure to vote for Estrada acquittal spared from wiretap’

The phone lines of five judges in the ongoing impeachment trial of President Estrada were left untapped because Malacañang is reportedly confident the judges will vote to acquit the President, a newspaper reporter testified yesterday.

Quoting a police source, reporter Christine Herrera of the Philippine Daily Inquirer made the testimony yesterday morning in a hearing of the impeachment court which is investigating the reported bugging of telephones of the court’s officers.

Herrera identified the five senators as Blas Ople, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Teresa Aquino-Oreta, Robert Jaworski and Ramon Revilla.

"The Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) did not need to monitor these senators because the President was sure of their vote of acquittal," Herrera said.

Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General and PAOCTF chief Panfilo Lacson, however, denied that the police were involved in any electronic surveillance of any officer of the impeachment court.

Instead, Lacson testified that a Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) employee helped a crack police intelligence officer to monitor the calls made by senator-judges and prosecutors in the ongoing impeachment trial.

In a related development, documents obtained by reporters showed that the PNP acquired P46 million worth of eavesdropping equipment three months ago.

The equipment include two German-made G-Track telephone and cellular telephone monitoring units, speech processor, audio monitoring device, pager monitoring system with 32 channels worth P6 million, cellular telephone intercept units worth P21 million, two transceiver bugging devices model PK-870 worth P300,000 and other equipment, according to the document.

PNP spokesman Senior Superintendent Nicanor Bartolome, however, dismissed the document as "spurious."

"It (the papers) did not come from us and anybody can just produce the pieces of paper," Bartolome said.

Lacson, for his part, testified that he had not authorized anyone to conduct electronic surveillance on any court officer and that an internal inquiry identified the PLDT employee allegedly responsible for the release of the confidential telephone call detail reports.

He identified the PLDT employee as Flovina Pasamba, who supposedly turned over the printouts to a police intelligence officer, whom Lacson did not identify.

Police sources, however, identified the officer as Superintendent Rodolfo "Boogie" Mendoza, acknowledged by law enforcers as a crack intelligence officer currently assigned with the PNP Center for Transnational Crime.

Mendoza is reportedly a member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1978 which counts as "honorary member" Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Police sources added that Pasamba is allegedly an executive secretary of a manager in the PLDT central office and a girlfriend of Mendoza.

Lacson said the police were "closing in" on Mendoza who, he claimed, turned over the illegal documents to Surigao Rep. Robert Ace Barbers, who in turn leaked the document to Herrera and Inquirer reporter Carlito Pablo.

"There really is no perfect crime," Lacson told the impeachment tribunal.

Herrera and Pablo both testified on Tuesday that the illegally obtained documents included the call details of several opposition senators as well as other public figures, including missing public relations executive Salvador "Bubby" Dacer.

In a press statement, the Dacer family confirmed that all the telephone lines at the publicist’s office and residence were indeed tapped.

"The family of Dacer sought the assistance of a private firm to check up all the land lines being used by Dacer in his house and office... all of Dacer’s five land lines, including the two connected to the fax machines tested positive of bugging device," (sic) the statement said.

Meanwhile, Superintendent Dioscoro Valeroso, a special assistant of Lacson who was tagged as the leader of an alleged special team supposedly tasked with monitoring telephone calls of opposition leaders, denied involvement in the illegal wiretapping activities.

"I think it is the result of watching too (many) James Bond movies," Valeroso said, affirming his oath to obey the lawful orders of the police chain of command.

In another development, Interior and Local Government Secretary Alfredo Lim ordered Lacson to impose the necessary sanction against any police official found involved in the alleged wiretapping activities to monitor officials of the impeachment tribunal.

"We will never countenance the commission of illegal acts, like wiretapping, by our policemen," Lim told reporters.

National Security Adviser Alexander Aguirre, for his part, noted that police and intelligence agencies are not the only groups capable of electronic eavesdropping since private firms may easily conduct wiretapping activities as well.

Although illegal, Aguirre said, electronic eavesdropping is easily done by to the civilian sector, like security or private detective agencies. — Jaime Laude, Christina Mendez, Perseus Echeminada, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Marichu Villanueva