Adding fuel to the fire

It would seem elementary, my dear Watson, that one good way of putting the brakes on a political crisis is to answer all lingering questions and avoid opening new ones. But Environment Secretary Mike Defensor, who also seems to double up as top GMA political operative cum all-around fixer-upper, has done the latter with his "bombshell" that parts, and I stress parts, of the Garci tapes were faked.

Mike sent portions of the Garci tapes to one Barry Dickey whose credentials include checking out audio and video tapes sent by Osama bin Laden to foreign broadcast networks for authenticity and currency.

Dickey found that certain segments of the tape were faked. The bogus segments are among the most contentious, including GMA’s anxious inquiries on whether she would win by a million votes, and "yung dagdag, yung dagdag" (the added votes).

Mike says he undertook this effort on his own, much like, I suppose, Toting Bunye took it upon himself to exhibit the "original" and "tampered" versions of the Garci tape before the Malacañang Press Corps. The Palace forthwith distanced itself from Toting and is now saying that it knew nothing of Mike’s project.

GMA’s minions, evidently, have a habit of doing things in the service of the Boss without her prior approval or, it would appear, her knowledge. Mike insists he spent his own money in this caper, all of three thousand five hundred American dollars.

We’re not saying, mind you, that Dickey’s finding is the work of a dickhead. He seems to have a solid reputation for technical competence. The problem is the parameters of the test commissioned by Sec. Mike. The opposition says: garbage in, garbage out. Whether the tapes sent by Defensor were garbage is, of course, arguable. But this is what I mean by addressing crises by opening a veritable Pandora’s Box of valid questions.

Let me illustrate. Mike admitted in an interview on Insider that only portions of the entire three-hour tape were given to Dickey. He explained that analysis of the entire tape would have cost him too big a bundle. But this then raises the issue of why he did this all by his lonesome and not enlist the support of Malacañang which, I am sure, would not have been similarly constrained.

There is also the question of what tape was sent by Mike. Did he present one or both Bunye tapes, the Alan Paguia "edited" version, or clean excerpts from the full three-hour tape? And what, if at all, did Mike offer as evidence of the real voices of GMA, or Garci for that matter, which Dickey could use in his comparative analysis?

We also need to understand what questions Mike wanted answers to. Obviously, he wanted to know whether genuine utterances of GMA were edited and spliced to produce a conversation that never took place. Admittedly, current technology makes this not only possible, but rather easy.

According to Mike, Dickey said that there were indeed constructs of conversations composed of spliced words. We should hear from Dickey himself what exactly he said about this. Alternatively, complete copies of his report should be made publicly available. The devil could be in the details, as we all know.

Since it appears only selected portions of the tape were presented for analysis, there clearly could not have been a finding that other portions of the three-hour tape were genuine. Such a finding, naturally, would have put us in an entirely new ball game because it would have established the authenticity of some portions of the tape. Thus far, the authenticity of the Garci tapes has not been admitted by GMA.

The focus of the inquiry would then be on which portions were genuine and which were not. In such a case, the opinions of other experts as qualified as Dickey, could be secured. While these experts might unanimously conclude that portions of, or all, the tapes were falsified, we will never know for sure until analyses are undertaken under more controlled and transparent conditions.

With all these developments, the posturing of politicians is in full cry. This time, however, they have good reason to meet Defensor’s claims head-on. To Mike’s credit, he has accepted Senator Ping Lacson’s offer to apologize to GMA and ask the supporters of impeachment to withdraw their support if the tapes are proven to be fake.

Rep. Alan Cayetano’s challenge is more precise and, in my view, patently more sensible. He and other colleagues have offered to resign if an orderly and pre-agreed process of expert analysis establishes that the Garci tapes are fake. All interested parties would have to agree on the experts to be utilized. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United Kingdom’s Scotland Yard have been proposed.

In addition, Cayetano asks that there be agreement on the specific tapes to be analyzed, as well as on the specimens of genuine voices to be provided. All existing versions could be used, not just one. Then the issue of whether any or all of them have been tampered with, edited, spliced or totally faked can be put to rest.

With his revelations, Secretary Defensor brought the authenticity of the Garci tapes back to center stage of the impeachment process. This issue now becomes more important than legal technicalities about the particular complaint the House Justice Committee should consider or whether "creeping impeachment" is allowed.

If there was any issue which could turn the legal process into a "political" struggle, this one can. In context, it’s probably better for the political development of this country to get to the bottom of the Garci tapes, rather than wallow in legal technicalities.

So bring it on. Let’s take the initiative away from the partisans and spinmeisters with their own agendas, and give it to disinterested and indubitably qualified experts. This long-suffering country deserves nothing less.