Audio engineer says voices on tapes those of Garcillano, GMA

A senior sound engineer who works in the local music industry disclosed yesterday that he has made an independent analysis of the "Hello, Garci" tapes and they appear to be authentic.

Jimmy Sarthou, who was presented to the media by opposition congressmen Teofisto Guingona III of Bukidnon and Rolex Suplico of Iloilo, said the voices heard on the tapes were those of President Arroyo and former election official Virgilio Garcillano.

"I can definitely say that that is his voice. And I can conclude that he was talking to the President. Nobody has to be an audio expert" to reach that conclusion, he told reporters, emphasizing that he was not choosing sides in the six-month controversy over the recordings.

"I was not commissioned by anybody," he said.

Mrs. Arroyo’s allies in the House of Representatives quickly dismissed Sarthou’s conclusion.

"It has no probative value because he is not an authorized specialist in the field and he is not a witness in the tape probe. We will not lend credence to his statements," said Nueva Ecija Rep. Rodolfo Antonino.

Sarthou said he had compared copies of the recordings presented months ago to the media by Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye and lawyer Alan Paguia, a former defense attorney of deposed President Joseph Estrada.

Sarthou, who has been in the local music industry for the past 27 years, said their tape speeds varied "but the contents and everything are the same. They all come from one source."

He demonstrated his analysis using a computer that could isolate the different sounds on a recording. "It runs along synchronously, smoothly, as if you were hearing one tape," he said.

Sarthou said he is willing to present his findings to an investigation. The Senate and the House of Representatives are conducting separate inquiries on the "Hello, Garci" tapes, which sparked the electoral fraud allegations hounding Mrs. Arroyo and the worst political crisis to threaten her presidency.

House Majority Leader Prospero Nograles suspected Sarthou’s presentation was "timed" by the opposition for today’s resumption of the House probe. "Why only now? The court is the proper forum for them to present their witnesses or so-called experts."

In August, weeks before the House crushed the opposition’s bid to impeach Mrs. Arroyo over charges of vote-rigging, Sarthou was presented in a media conference by close Arroyo adviser Environment Secretary Michael Defensor to show that the audio recordings were fake.

But in a strange twist, Sarthou claimed he was supposed to meet with Defensor at a hotel to present his view but was surprised when a press briefing was waiting for him instead.

Sarthou then hid in the toilet until the press conference was over.

"Regrettably, Congress is being taken for a ride by Mr. Jim Sarthou who is neither an expert witness nor an accredited specialist in the field of voice identification. Jim has allegedly presented himself as one of my expert witnesses when he knew for a fact, along with four other sound engineers, that their support was mere guidance and not as experts as (was) the study conducted by forensic engineer Mr. Barry Dickey," Defensor said in a statement. — With Marvin Sy, Evelyn Macairan