Magdalo officers join ‘Garci’ probe

Two junior officers implicated in the 2003 Oakwood mutiny will take part in the investigation of military generals mentioned in audio tapes of purported wiretapped conversations indicating vote rigging in the elections last year.

Appointed as members of the military’s fact-finding body’s secretariat are Navy Lts. Senior Grade Ronald Allan Uy and Anchines Alphonso Diola.

Both officers, who were initially detained for participating in the one-day Oakwood mutiny, have been assigned to help in the gathering of evidence against the four generals, including Army Special Operations Command chief and incoming Army chief Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon.

Uy and Diola’s tasks with the military’s fact-finding body will be in addition to their permanent jobs as assistants to the chief of the Investigation Division of the AFP Inspector General’s Office based at Camp Aguinaldo in Quezon City.

"Their presence could just be incidental but then again, it subtly means to ensure impartiality," said Vice Adm. Mateo Mayuga, the AFP’s Inspector General who had been named the concurrent chairman of the board.

Apart from Esperon, among those mentioned in the tapes were Army First Infantry Division chief Maj. Gen. Gabriel Habacon, Philippine Military Academy (PMA) assistant superintendent Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani and retired general Roy Kyamko, the former Southern Command chief.

The task force was created to investigate allegations that they were a part of a conspiracy to rig the results of the May 10, 2004 presidential election.

The controversial tapes revealed several telephone conversations of President Arroyo supposedly calling former Commission on Elections (Comelec) commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to fix the election results in her favor.

Even after the President publicly apologized for what she called "lapse of judgment" for calling the election official, she denied accusations of cheating and failed to confirm whether it was Garcillano she was talking to at the end of the line.

The tapes also mentioned several names including those of Esperon, Habacon and Kyamko who openly supported Mrs. Arroyo while Gudani, for his part, favored the late Fernando Poe Jr., the opposition presidential candidate.

Mayuga said he tapped Uy and Diola, both members of the PMA class of 1995, to his unit following their release from the military stockade, less than a week before the second anniversary of the Oakwood mutiny.

Aside from helping to have an impartial investigation into the tapes, Mayuga expressed his belief that having the two officers in the probe could help them go back to the mainstream of Armed Forces of the Philippines.

"As a senior officer, one of my duties is to look after the welfare of subordinates. Helping them get back to the mainstream of the AFP is one of them," Mayuga said.

Navy spokesman Capt. Geronimo Malabanan said Uy and Diola were ordered detained and investigated by former AFP chief Narciso Abaya after their names appeared in a list of supposed group of junior officers involved in a coup attempt against the government.

At the time when the mutiny took place in Makati City, both Uy and Diola were assigned at the AFP Central Command based in Cebu. Diola was at the command’s intelligence division while Uy was with the Naval Forces Central’s operations division.

Malabanan said AFP chief Gen. Efren Abu cleared them of any charge, prompting the Navy to release the two officers. The two were not charged accordingly before any military or civil court in connection with the Oakwood incident.