Ex-PAOCTF officers ‘bugging’ GMA camp?

Police officers formerly assigned with the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (PAOCTF) have been listening to the telephone conversations of President Arroyo’s supporters since she took office last Jan. 20, Camp Crame insiders said yesterday.

Sources claimed Senior Superintendents Michael Ray Aquino and Cesar Mancao, two officers closely identified with former PNP chief Director General Panfilo Lacson, have been leading a group of eavesdroppers using wiretapping devices acquired while they were still with the elite police unit.

One insider said the group managed to smuggle out of Camp Crame four sets of sophisticated monitoring equipment shortly after police Director Hermogenes Ebdane took over the helm of the task force.

The equipment included two sets of German-made telephone and cellular phone monitoring devices, which can intercept and listen to 170 conversations at any given time, and two sets of Canadian-made devices which can intercept 70 telephone conversations.

Sources said the monitoring devices were acquired using the PNP intelligence fund.

"Someone must account for these monitoring equipment since they rightly belong to the PNP," one source said.

Last December, Lacson was accused of tapping the phone lines of senator-judges and prosecutors in the Estrada impeachment trial. However, he denied authorizing any electronic surveillance of any officer of the impeachment courts.

During the same month, documents obtained by reporters showed that the PNP had acquired P46 million worth of eavesdropping equipment.

Lacson again denied the report, saying there was a plan to procure surveillance equipment but it did not materialize.

In a separate interview, an Army intelligence officer validated the claims of the police sources, saying their office had received reports that former PAOCTF personnel under Lacson were conducting wiretapping activities on Mrs. Arroyo’s supporters, including senatorial candidates.

"We have A-1 info about the eavesdropping operation," the intelligence officer said.

He cited as example the supposed meeting between Lacson’s nemesis, Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson, and gambling lords at the Galleria Suites in Mandaluyong City in mid-February.

"To validate the reports, an Army officer sent decoy information that Singson would be meeting a group of gambling lords from Luzon at a specific time. This was intercepted by PAOCTF officers who fed the information to Lacson. Immediately after that, Lacson prepared a press statement against Singson in connection with a meeting that never took place," the source explained.

Lacson’s press statement appeared in the papers but Singson, who apparently had prior knowledge of the ploy, challenged the former PNP chief to identify the individuals who attended the mock meeting.

Lacson later backtracked on his statement, saying he just received information from a certain gambling lord who had attended the meeting.

"General Lacson failed to further exploit the issue because the meeting never took place," said the source, a member of the Young Officers Union.