Erap on tape: Don’t look at us

Saying only the government possesses the equipment to eavesdrop on telephone conversations, deposed President Joseph Estrada laughed off allegations by Malacañang yesterday that the opposition had engaged in illegal wiretapping.

Estrada accused the Palace of making another crude attempt to divert the public’s attention from the controversy surrounding the First Family’s alleged links to jueteng operators.

He issued the denial after one of his former lawyers, Alan Paguia, admitted he provided the "voiceover" for the compact discs released to the media, citing the date, time and place of an alleged conversation between President Arroyo and a certain "Gary" about tampering with the results of the May 10, 2004 presidential elections.

"Wala akong alam diyan. Bakit ako na naman ang pagbibintangan nila (I don’t know anything about that. Why am I again being accused of this)?" Estrada fumed.

"Nag-aalaga lang ako ng pato dito (I am just taking care of my ducks here)," he said, laughing.

Estrada referred to the water fowl at his rest house in Tanay, Rizal, where he is detained while undergoing trial for plunder before the Sandiganbayan.

He lambasted the Palace for accusing the opposition of using dirty tricks, a day after Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye released to the press two sets of compact discs, one marked "original" and the other marked "altered," said to be the alleged wiretapped conversations.

"Whoever gave the tape to Bunye was the same one who gave the tape to Alan and the opposition," Estrada said in Filipino.

However, he pointed out that "the original tape was given to the opposition while the spliced one was given to the Palace."

During his short stay in Malacañang, Estrada recalled that he allocated the Philippine National Police a budget of P75 million to purchase "very sophisticated" wiretapping equipment. The PNP, then headed by now opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson, was to use the equipment to conduct an intensified campaign against kidnap-for-ransom gangs and other big-time criminal syndicates.

As far as he knows, Estrada said, the equipment are now with the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines at Camp Aguinaldo.

"It is they in the administration who have the technical equipment and the capability to do wiretapping," he said. "So she should blame her own people because it’s her own people who did (the wiretapping) on her."

Estrada expressed disgust at being linked anew to reported attempts to destabilize the government, simply because Paguia had once been his lawyer.

Paguia was suspended by the Supreme Court when he questioned the propriety of the participation by several SC justices, led by Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr., in what he claimed to be Estrada’s unconstitutional removal from office in January 2001.

"So how can (Paguia) be my lawyer when he’s already suspended?" Estrada said. "They are panicking at the Palace. But she should look in her own backyard because there is no one in the opposition who has the capability and the sophisticated equipment, which are also very expensive."

Meanwhile, Lacson said the chief of staff of Negros Occidental Rep. Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo, the President’s brother-in-law, was the "Gary" referred to in the alleged taped conversation.

Eduardo "Bong" Ruado Jr.’s name cropped up as the supposed voice behind the mysterious ‘Gary,’" according to Lacson.

Based on the information that reached him, Lacson said Ruado had merely supplied his voice to dub over the original voice on the alleged wiretapped conversation between Mrs. Arroyo and Commission on Elections (Comelec) Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

This piece of information was validated by a highly placed source, who told The STAR that the person who conducted the wiretapping had reportedly sent word that he was willing to come out in the open and confirm this at the risk of being jailed, "if only to save the country."

"That means they (Palace officials) were the ones who were wiretapping themselves," the same source said.

Ruado is reportedly an employee who started working for Mrs. Arroyo when she was still a senator.

Arroyo said in a radio interview that Ruado worked for Mrs. Arroyo during the run-up to the May 2004 elections, but did not know what job the President had assigned to Ruado.

He added that after the election, Ruado joined his congressional staff.

Responding to a question, Arroyo said he did not know if his chief of staff was the "Gary" the President conversed with in the controversial tape.

Sources told The STAR that Ruado was from Romblon, Romblon and had been working for Mrs. Arroyo since she was a senator.

But former Bulacan congressman Willie Villarama, who served as Mrs. Arroyo’s chief of staff when she was vice president, said he did not know Ruado.

"If he was with the political staff, he was not under me. They reported to LTA," he said, referring to the Makati building owned by the family of First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo and where the President’s husband holds office.

Sought for comment, House Minority Leader Francis Escudero expressed disbelief that a colleague’s staff member would wield so much power and influence as the "Gary" in the tapes seemed to have.

"He is being supplanted for the real Gary or Gare," Escudero said.

‘Thief Suing Victim’

Paguia said yesterday that it was not his decision to come out in the open and admit being the source of the alleged wiretapped conversation, but he considered it his duty to the country.

"It was not a decision. It was a duty. Yes, I made the introduction (to the conversation between Mrs. Arroyo and Garcillano)," he confessed.

The former Ateneo de Manila University law professor thumbed down suggestions that he could be haled to court for violating the anti-wiretapping law.

"Why should they sue me? They’re suing me for exposing their lies? How about their conspiracy? It’s just like the thief suing his victim," he said. "I have done everything I can do to share the truth about this to the Filipino people."

Paguia said the manner by which he got hold of the tape was "secondary," stressing that "it’s not as important as the contents of the tape. They should examine the contents. It is frightening."

He admitted that he "edited" the contents of the compact disc, which was originally "three hours long."

"I received them May 15. It’s three hours long. I had to edit it, so I edited it for two days and two nights," Paguia said, refusing to comment any further. The compact disc is now 36 minutes long.

Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the National Bureau of Investigation should look into Paguia’s possible liability for admitting he annotated the spliced conversation.

Bunye As Suspect

Meanwhile, Lacson denied reports linking him to the alleged wiretapped conversation that reportedly occurred on June 29, 2004.

Lacson said Bunye should be held liable under Republic Act 4200, the anti-wiretapping law, for "mere possession" of the taped conversation.

"Ako ang unang suspect. Pero hindi ako. Ang suspect as of now is Secretary Bunye. Siya lang ang may possession (I am the first suspect. But I didn’t do it. The suspect as of now is Secretary Bunye. He’s the one in possession of the tape). Anyway, six months to six years can still be under probation," he said, referring to the penalty if Bunye is convicted of "mere possession of wiretapped material," which is a criminal offense.

Lacson observed that "it has been becoming a pattern" that Mrs. Arroyo’s brother-in-law seems to be "a fall guy" for mistakes made by the administration.

Amid confusion about the compact disc’s authenticity, Lacson suggested that the discs be authenticated by an independent, reputable group of voice experts who can establish which were the real and which the altered wiretapped conversations.

He added that the "burden of proof" lies with Malacañang since the compact discs were first released by Bunye.

It is not the first time Lacson has been linked to illegal wiretapping activities.

When he was PNP chief, then Senior Superintendent Eduardo Matillano, chief of Task Force Amihan, conducted a raid on a building at the height of the 1998 elections.

Several telephone units with gadgets allegedly used to record telephone conversations as well as tapes were seized during the raid, along with several high-powered firearms. Matillano filed a wiretapping case against Lacson but this was subsequently dismissed.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a former defense chief, noted that the annotations on both conversations were probably made by a military man since he used "date-time group" references to outline the conversations.

He also questioned the motive behind the release of the tape, which was done at the height of the jueteng controversy.

Biazon said the tape, apart from violating the anti-wiretapping law, could be a matter of national security because no less than the President’s private line had been tapped.

"Can anybody just tape (the conversations of the) commander-in-chief at any time? This is dangerous. So there is a need to investigate. Hopefully, the one who will investigate is capable of conducting a fair probe," he said.

Biazon also raised the possibility that Malacañang had intervened in the affairs of an independent government body.

"The issue of the independence of a commission, Comelec. If this is true, it seems that there was an attempt to manipulate the election process through this conversation. There is a need to investigate who made this tape. If it was taped, then what is the motive?" he said.

But Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez came to Bunye’s defense by saying the presidential spokesman could not be charged with violating the anti-wiretapping law if the conversation was taped with the consent of both parties.

Ermita said Bunye knew exactly what he was doing when he came out with the compact discs.

He said the ones who did the wiretapping, not the ones who exposed the activity, should be held responsible.

Ermita added that an investigation will show how Bunye acquired the tapes, which could not be used against him or the President since it came from a polluted source.

"The point is, in the first place, like what a lawyer says, this is the fruit of a poison tree. Since wiretapping is illegal, there’s no sense talking about whether this could stand in court," Ermita said. — With Christina Mendez, Jess Diaz, Aurea Calica, Delon Porcalla