PNP spokesman Senior Superintendent Samuel Pagdilao said the police could not initiate an investigation on the matter after Congress leaders denied there ever was a break-in.
"According to the House there’s no such thing. And another thing, there’s no tape and we have not seen it. So it’s within the realm of fiction and tale," Pagdilao noted.
The PNP spokesman said the tape should be produced otherwise there is no case as the House leadership maintains there was no such incident.
Though a reporter claimed to have seen the tapes of the actual break-in two years ago, Pagdilao said the police cannot force the media to surrender these tapes.
He said in the absence of the tape and records, "the PNP won’t initiate any investigation, not at this time... It’s like no evidence, no case, no body, no murder."
Reports had it that footage on a compact disc had shown the alleged break-in at the South Wing of the Batasan complex in Quezon City where ballot boxes full of election returns of the 2004 national elections were kept.
However, not a single TV grab of the alleged break-in was shown on television or printed in newspapers since the existence of the CD was floated.
Administration lawmakers said the alleged video showing purported ballot-switching was clearly motivated by dirty politics and the outright desire by its fabricators to enrich themselves at the nation’s expense.
Nationalist People’s Coalition Reps. Douglas Cagas of Davao del Sur and Eduardo Veloso of Leyte expressed certainty that the story about an alleged break-in and ballot-switching at the House was being recycled as a tool to aid further destabilization moves against the government.
Cagas and Veloso said the people can only dismiss the video as fiction knowing that the opposition have long been pursuing their poll fraud charges against President Arroyo without any credible evidence.
Cagas said those behind the video production were motivated by greed as the opposition were desperate for even fabricated evidence against Mrs. Arroyo.
"They think the opposition was gullible enough to accept it because it is in dire need of evidence against the President," he said.
The peddling of the CD containing photographs of alleged ballot-switching would have been easier has they put up an ukay-ukay (recycled goods) store for it, said Cagas.
Meanwhile, former senator Loren Legarda said the supposed video footage of a break-in at the House of Representatives storage area is proof that election returns were switched to cover up fraud perpetrated by the administration during the 2004 polls.
In a statement, Legarda, who lost the vice presidency to media colleague Noli de Castro that year, said the footage means that the results of the vote for both president and vice president had been tampered with.
"Even before this video came out, there were already reports that sometime in January and February 2005, operatives of the administration switched genuine election returns with fakes so the figures would match doctored results as reflected in the statement of votes and certificates of canvass," she said.
She added that even without the alleged footage, the substitution of ERs is clear from the fact that returns from Lanao del Sur, which the Supreme Court sitting as the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) is examining, do not match with counterpart copies belonging to the Commission on Elections and the National Movement for Free Elections.
She stressed that copies of the ERs sent to Congress, the Comelec, Namfrel and the political parties should be identical.
"But when compared with other copies, the ERs retrieved from the House were discovered to be forgeries," she claimed.
Speaking to reporters when she visited Linggoy Alcuaz who was detained at the warrant and subpoena section of the Quezon City Police District, Legarda said out of seven copies of election returns for Lanao del Sur, it is only the copy of the House of Representatives that shows Arroyo and De Castro won in the elections.
Legarda was the running mate of the late Fernando Poe Jr., who lost to Mrs. Arroyo. The PET is in the process of hearing the election protest Legarda filed against De Castro. — With Jess Diaz, James Mananghaya