Institutions ruined by Garci, Garcia

Virgilio Garcillano was a fool to think he could turn the tables on accusers of election fraud by listing them as his phone pals during the 2004 campaign. Congressmen were bigger fools in thinking they could squeeze explosive tidbits from the poll commissioner who sprang out of hiding with a script to follow at the House inquiry. The biggest fool was the media that thought it had a juicy event to cover in the nine-hour confrontation of the two sides.

That observation, made by a top broadcaster, was not an invitation to shoot the messenger. It was a sigh of frustration, shared by the rest of the politics-crazy population, about the depths to which leaders have sunk in promoting their self-interests.

The much-advertised House hearing elicited nothing new. Garcillano had everything down pat, from his refusal to talk about the "Hello Garci" wiretap CD ("it’s sub judice, it’s spliced") to his supposed flight only to Mindanao and never to Singapore ("I can’t find my passport anymore"). Inquisitors, with one eye on television cameras, failed to chink his defense. Contrary to Malacañang hopes, there was no closure of the tumult over Garcillano’s 15 taped conversations with President Gloria Arroyo during the election canvassing. The nation is right back where it started on June 6. And that place, when Press Sec. Ignacio Bunye pre-empted the Opposition exposé of the damning chats by playing to reporters a supposed original CD and an altered version, is one of alienated politics.

That there was lying, cheating and stealing in the polls, as opponents accuse Ms Arroyo, is highly probable. But that the accusers brought their case first to the streets and only on second thought to the impeachment hall, yet never to the criminal court, betrayed their motive. They were themselves liars, cheaters and stealers out to grab power and not to serve justice. People know it and thus did not join street demonstrations. Accused and accusers all belong to elite families that have ruled the land for decades but brought no real progress. Lying-cheating-stealing is the fare that keeps them in power.

The damage wrought by the political class in the "Hello Garci" affair is not only internal – in terms of pulverizing the faith of people in leaders. It is also external. At a time when the government is striving to show the world that it can tackle cross-border terrorists, Garcillano left and returned to the country undetected by immigration officers. Singapore has a finer record in nabbing terrorists, so its note to the Philippines that Garcillano had entered its territory on July 14 and departed the next day holds more credibility than his line of hiding only in Cotabato all this time. And even if the latter is true, it shows how inept cops are in hunting down a man wanted by Congress, much more terrorists who bombed Bali and were later sighted also in Cotabato. The fetching of Garcillano by a posse of House deputies and policemen revealed even more. Armed men, some in hoods, delivered him to them in a speedboat. Upon seeing the head of Garcillano’s security team, the cops executed a snappy salute of recognition.

Meanwhile, the other side is also bringing down the country’s image through violence. A group calling itself Enlightened Warriors, supposedly from the military, sprayed with bullets the office building of presidential spouse Mike Arroyo, and bombed the car of buddy Rep. Ronaldo Puno and printing presses of two other friends. The same group is believed to have made the bomb threats on the embassies of the United States, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Switzerland – prompting envoys to warn their citizens against traveling to the Philippines. It’s all in a day’s work of bringing the economy to its knees in the hope of expelling a President and taking over from her.

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No wonder observers detected a smile on his face when Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia was sentenced to two years’ hard labor. That term isn’t so scary after all. International human rights rules forbid the old punishment of pounding boulders. In the military, hard labor simply spells extra fatigue work. For enlisted men it means cleaning detention cells. But since Garcia holds star rank, he will by tradition be spared of such menial work. And since he already spent a year in jail while under court martial – a good part of it in "quarters befitting a general" accorded to him by the military brass – he will do only one year more at his new jail at the police camp. There, custodians believe hard labor to mean no VIP treatment and cell phones – which convicts are forbidden to enjoy to begin with. But he will have free use of a television that inmates pass around from cell to cell. That also means Garcia’s jail has an electrical socket after all, perhaps also for air-conditioner, refrigerator, and his favorite home entertainment system.

US authorities, who helped nail Garcia on suspicion that he filched part of America’s annual military aid, are happy that trial took only two weeks short of a year. But Filipino prosecutors weren’t as delighted. Atty. Leonard de Vera opined that the court martial went that fast only because it was the media that exposed Garcia’s shenanigans, and the media too closely monitored the outcome. As head of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines observer panel to the trial, de Vera knows only too well that other cases are gathering cobwebs in other courts unnoticed by the press.

De Vera and Rep. Roilo Golez, a retired Navy captain, weren’t happy too that Garcia alone was sentenced. Cohort-superiors and subordinates who helped him amass illegal wealth continue in the service or enjoy retirement. True, Garcia’s cases for violating the Articles of War were personal. He had lied in withholding his true worth in his Statements of Assets and Liabilities for 2002 and 2003, and for holding a US immigration card while in the military service. But de Vera and Golez are sure Garcia couldn’t have done alone the amassing of P324 million in illegal riches without the aid of fellow officers. Garcia faces the charge of plunder of that amount before the Sandiganbayan. Co-accused as accessories are his wife and three sons. Nowhere in the military and civilian cases are other officers implicated. Investigations of only two former budget officers, Col. George Rabusa and Maj. Ramoncito Lim, have yet to be concluded after a year.

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