‘Wiretap capability only for landlines’

The Armed Forces of the Philippines is capable of wiretapping, though this is limited only to landline telephones, an AFP official said yesterday

Brig. Gen. Marlu Quevedo, chief of the Intelligence Service of the AFP, admitted this yesterday but was quick to clarify that the ISAFP only conducts wiretapping operations duly authorized by the courts.

Quevedo’s admission contradicted earlier contentions by former ISAFP chief and now AFP deputy chief for intelligence Rear Admiral Tirso Danga that the military was not involved in any wiretapping operations and that it lacked the capability to do so.

"Our capability (to wiretap) is limited only to landlines, but it should have a court order. It’s illegal if you go beyond that," Quevedo told reporters.

Commonly known as "sabit (snag)," this obsolete method of wiretapping makes use of connection gadgets called palaka (frogs) that are attached to the telephone landlines of subjects of surveillance.

The Philippine National Police (PNP) is also capable of this form of wiretapping.

Such basic wiretapping can be done with the consent and cooperation of personnel in telephone companies, whom the AFP and PNP maintain as assets.

Quevedo said the ISAFP cannot afford state-of-the-art electronic wiretapping equipment capable of intercepting and recording cellular phone conversations.

The so-called "children of the mother of all tapes" was played during a Senate inquiry on Thursday, where it was revealed that the telephone lines of opposition figures were also apparently wiretapped during the 2004 election period.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, chairman of the Senate committee on defense and national security, said the tapes proved that the ISAFP was being used for political purposes.

When asked whether the ISAFP wiretapped opposition figures during the election period, Quevedo said: "I don’t know... I don’t have an idea."

Having taken over the ISAFP from Danga, Quevedo was put in the spot after the "Hello, Garci" tape exposé of former National Bureau of Investigation deputy director for intelligence Samuel Ong.

ISAFP was dragged deeper into the "Hello, Garci" controversy after one of its agents, Air Force T/Sgt. Vidal Doble, was named by Quevedo as the source of the "Hello, Garci" recordings.

Doble himself admitted in a video recording that he and his team at ISAFP bugged telephone conversations between President Arroyo and former elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

In the controversial recordings, Mrs. Arroyo was purportedly caught discussing with Garcillano how to rig the results of the elections in Western Mindanao in 2004.

During the Senate investigation on Thursday, Doble’s mistress, Marietta Santos, claimed to have seen wiretapping equipment for cellular phones inside the "blue room" of ISAFP headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo.

The tapes played at the Senate showed that Mira Dumlao, a staff member of former opposition senator Gregorio Honasan; retired Maj. Gen. Rodolfo Canieso, a supporter of defeated presidential candidate Sen. Panfilo Lacson; and retired Navy Commodore Rex Robles had been wiretapped, allegedly by the ISAFP.