DOJ chief: Stop House probe, file perjury raps vs Garci

Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez asked the House of Representatives yesterday to stop its investigation into the "Hello, Garci" controversy, saying it is "going nowhere."

In a press conference, Gonzalez asked lawmakers to file perjury charges instead against former election official Virgilio Garcillano to finally determine whether he is telling the truth.

"They are trying to squeeze blood from stone. It is a waste of taxpayers’ money. The ones who are interested in (pursuing the issue) should just file charges," he said.

Gonzalez made the statement in reaction to Rep. Imee Marcos’ claims that Garcillano was not telling the truth when he insisted that he did not leave the country for Singapore last July 14.

Gonzalez said Garcillano is duty-bound to disprove the official note issued by Singapore, which said he was there on July 14 and Aug. 14.

Garcillano went into hiding after the "Hello, Garci" tapes were released early last July by the opposition, which accuses President Arroyo of cheating her way to victory in the May 2004 general elections.

They accuse Garcillano of conspiring to help Mrs. Arroyo win by a narrow margin of over a million votes.

At the House inquiry on the controversy, Garcillano maintained there was no cheating and he was not the official heard in the "Hello, Garci" recordings.

"I never allowed myself to be an instrument in cheating. I don’t know how I could redeem myself in this. I won’t force people to believe what I’m saying, but I’m sworn to do the best I could do," he told the five House committees conducting the joint inquiry.

Mrs. Arroyo admits speaking to an election official during the slow vote count but denies rigging the outcome. She did not identify the official she spoke with.

Garcillano insisted at the congressional inquiry that he was being truthful but conceded that he would have difficulty convincing the public.

"I really feel that I will not be able to clear my name," he said. "It’s very hard to make a comment. I don’t even know if people will believe me or not."

Garcillano also admitted yesterday that then Philippine National Police chief and now Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane provided him with security during the election period last year.

In his second day of testimony before five House committees inquiring into the "Hello, Garci" tape recording controversy, the former official also said he met with First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo once last year "when he was moving around Mindanao."

Later, however, he denied talking over the phone with the President’s husband about election matters, including efforts to help former Sen. Robert Barbers win over Sen. Rodolfo Biazon as seemingly indicated in the "Garci" tapes.

Responding to questions raised by Rep. Joel Villanueva of the party-list group Citizens Battle Against Corruption, Garcillano said Ebdane, who was still PNP chief in May last year, provided him with police security and three sport utility vehicles (SUVs).

"At that time, I was in danger because some people were running after me," he told the committees, though he did not elaborate. He said Ebdane made available to him three private vehicles that he used alternately, along with a back-up security vehicle.

He said the three SUVs were a Ford Expedition, a Nissan Patrol and a Toyota Hi-Lux.

When Villanueva asked the witness whether one of the two armed men who accompanied him when he presented himself to House Sergeant-at-Arms Bayani Fabic two weeks ago in a Maguindanao town before flying to Manila was provided to him by Ebdane, Garcillano said he did not know the man.

Villanueva said the man is a certain "Jason," a bodyguard of a suspected Central Luzon jueteng lord who also made the three SUVs available for Garcillano through Ebdane.

He said when Garcillano was in hiding for five months, opposition leaders, including Sen. Panfilo Lacson, suspected it was the former PNP chief who was sheltering him.

He added that the public works secretary was among the former commissioner’s first visitors when he arrived in Manila from Mindanao the other weekend.

Ebdane has denied coddling, hiding or protecting Garcillano during the five-month period that he disappeared.

During the hearing, the witness insisted that he did not leave the country on July 14, contrary to the findings of the Department of Justice and a certification from Singapore that he flew to Singapore on that date.

He also lamented that many members of the five committees and the public obviously do not believe what he has been saying since he resurfaced.

"If you do not believe what I am telling you, then I have no other way of convincing you," he told his interrogators.

He reminded them of his initial statement last week that he did not expect people to take his assertions at face value.

"In this sense, there may never be a closure to this controversy because I cannot control the judgment that you and the people make," he said.

Committee members told him that they found many parts of his testimony to be either "half-truths" or evasive. In the course of the hearing, Bukidnon Rep. Teofisto Guingona III brought to the attention of the five committees an en banc resolution of the Commission on Elections dated Aug. 31, 2005.

Guingona said all Comelec commissioners, including Garcillano who was no longer a member of the poll body in August, signed the resolution.

"Does this mean that Comelec officials knew all along where Mr. Garcillano was?" he asked.

The former commissioner said his signature was actually solicited before he went into hiding but that the resolution was promulgated two months later.

Guingona said if that were true, he found the practice to be highly irregular.

The committees voted to invite Chairman Benjamin Abalos and his colleagues to a future hearing to shed light on such practice. — With Delon Porcalla, Jess Diaz