Garcillano now in Singapore?

CLARK FIELD, Pampanga — Has Virgilio Garcillano skipped town?

Text messages circulated yesterday that the former election commissioner, whom many believe was the "Garci" talking with President Arroyo in a tapped phone conversation, had left the country for Singapore.

The text message said Garcillano took off from Subic Freeport between 7 and 8 p.m. Thursday on a SeaAir Lear jet with body No. RP-C1426.

The aircraft’s pilot was identified in the text message as Capt. Art Santos.

The Air Transportation Office (ATO) in Manila confirmed the pilot filed a flight plan and indicated he had two passengers.

However, the names of the passengers were not listed in the flight manifest, the ATO said.

The SeaAir offices at the Subic Freeport were closed yesterday, being a Sunday.

Immigration Commissioner Alipio Fernandez told The STAR yesterday it would be difficult for Garcillano to get out of the country without his passport being stamped by the Bureau of Immigration.

"He will be asked to board the same flight back and the airline which flew him in will be fined," he said.

"Without any exit immigration stamp (on his passport) from his originating port, he would not even be allowed to enter another country," Fernandez said.

He added there are no commercial flights from Subic Freeport, and that he will order immigration officials there to check if Garcillano had been on a flight out of Subic.

"Garcillano could have chartered a plane (if he had indeed fled to Singapore)," he said.

Fernandez said the immigration bureau does not have the authority to bar Garcillano from leaving the country unless the courts or the Department of Justice has issued a hold departure order against him.

"He can leave, and my instructions are only for monitoring purposes," he said.

"There is no hold departure order against Garcillano so he can leave the country, so I have asked our ports only to monitor his possible departure."

Fernandez said airports and seaports nationwide have been alerted to "monitor" Garcillano, but that there is no record to indicate that he had left the country.

Fernandez also debunked as "without basis" earlier reports that Garcillano had left the country on a private plane via Cagayan de Oro City.

Officials of airports in Metro Manila, Clark Special Economic Zone, Cebu, Davao, Zamboanga, and Kota Kinabalu, as well as the country’s only international seaport in Sandakan in Zamboanga City have been instructed to monitor Garcillano, he added.

Garcillano has been ordered arrested by the Senate after he failed to show up in a hearing investigating the so-called "Hello Garci" tapes despite several subpoenas sent to him.

Garcillano’s whereabouts have been a subject of speculation after he was tagged as the elections official talking with Mrs. Arroyo in a wiretapped telephone call during the 2004 elections.

Citing "lapse" of judgment, Mrs. Arroyo had admitted she had talked with an election official during the elections, but she did not name the official. — With Rainier Allan Ronda