‘Mike’s tape findings useless’

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Michael Defensor may have stirred a new controversy on the "Hello, Garci" tapes, but his findings that the recordings were "altered" cannot be used in the House impeachment proceedings to favor President Arroyo.

"They are useless. They are inadmissible in the impeachment hearings, even if they tend to favor the President," Pedro Ferrer, Mrs. Arroyo’s principal impeachment lawyer, said yesterday.

Lawyer Romulo Macalintal, the President’s spokesman for impeachment issues, said it would be premature for Mrs. Arroyo’s lawyers to immediately use Defensor’s findings, which were based on a study by an American expert, as part of their defense.

"This is just an opinion of Secretary Defensor. As for its evidentiary value, that remains to be studied," Macalintal said.

The STAR phoned Ferrer for his reaction to Defensor’s announcement last Friday that the administration intended to present the "altered" tapes to support the President’s plea for the House to dismiss the impeachment complaints against her.

Palace officials, notably Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye, supported Defensor’s statement. Over the weekend, Ermita and Bunye said Defensor’s findings would be part of the President’s defense in the impeachment proceedings.

Ermita said there was nothing wrong with Defensor’s effort to have the tapes analyzed abroad. Ermita also insisted that the Palace had nothing to do with Defensor’s effort. "He was doing what he could to defend the President,"Ermita said.

Political affairs adviser Gabriel Claudio did not believe the revelations would weaken Mrs. Arroyo’s case, as Sen. Panfilo Lacson claims.

"On the contrary, I believe it will at least make people realize the utter injustice and folly of trying to remove a duly-elected President on the basis of wiretapped audio recordings whose authenticity and accuracy are dubious," he said.

Ferrer said his Malacañang client, in her answer to the original complaint filed by lawyer Oliver Lozano, invoked the constitutional provision on the privacy of communication and Republic Act 4200, known as the Anti-Wiretapping Law.

"That means that the (Hello, Garci) tapes cannot be used either against or to favor her," he said.

Lozano’s petition charges her with betrayal of the public trust largely on the basis of the Garci recordings and her televised admission that she talked to an election official during the election period last year, though she did not name such official.

In her answer to the complainant, the President noted that the petitioner relied heavily on alleged wiretapped conversations as alleged proof of complainant’s.

"Under the Constitution and Republic Act 4200, however, the alleged wiretapped conversations subject of the controversy cannot be used for any purpose in any proceeding," she said.

She also said the House cannot inquire into the allegations of vote rigging and cheating in the tapes as these are within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, sitting as the President Electoral Tribunal.

The President, through Ferrer, reiterated these assertions in her "motion to strike" filed with the House justice committee last Wednesday. The motion seeks the expunging from the House records of the opposition’s stronger amended complaint against her and another petition filed by lawyer Jose Lopez of Manila.

The opposition’s complaint charges her not only with betrayal of the public trust but with violating the Constitution by, among other alleged crimes, influencing the Commission on Elections, and committing acts of bribery and graft and corruption.

After filing the motion to strike, Ferrer held a news conference in which he admitted that the President had talked to former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano, widely believed to be the "Garci" in the tapes.

Mrs. Arroyo’s lawyer later claimed that he was taken out of context.

Asked why Defensor, Ermita and Bunye would announce that the "altered" tapes would be part of the President’s defense, Ferrer said the three Cabinet members may not be aware of Mrs. Arroyo’s pleadings filed with the House.

"Besides, Mike Defensor is not a lawyer," he said.

He conceded that the three Cabinet members’ statements and the President’s motions contradict each other.

Sought for comment on the three Cabinet officials’ statements and the clarification made by Mrs. Arroyo’s lawyer, House Deputy Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said "these are typical of the administration’s propensity for double talk."

"The President is fond of saying one thing and doing another. She has told the House that the tapes are inadmissible as evidence, and yet, she allows her ‘Splice boy’ to tell the public that these recordings were allegedly altered," he said.

He said Defensor’s media presentation and statements had "served their sole purpose, which is to confuse the public, but our people know better."

In a related development, two House allies of the President urged both the administration and the opposition to "give due respect to the impeachment hearings which had already begun last week."

In a joint statement, Representatives Salacnib Baterina of Ilocos Sur and Aurelio Umali of Nueva Ecija, who are both members of the justice committee, said both camps should end their "battle of the tapes."

"Both camps are claiming that the authentication findings are better than the other. This is adding confusion to an already complicated situation. It would be better if they allow the impeachment process to go on unimpeded by all this political noise," they said.

Echoing his two colleagues’ appeal, Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr., also an Arroyo ally, said the "acoustics war must stop."

Former congressman Antonio Nachura, a Palace-designated "impeachment resource person," said the legal team would have to look at actual expert analyses and not just rely on media accounts.

"I’m sure this will be eventually evaluated one way or the other," he said. — With Paolo Romero