Tony Abaya wears his Tin-foil hat

Tony Abaya and his conspiracy theories. He was convinced that there was an American plot to remove Arroyo (via MLQ3):

(In early December 2005, there was a story in media about 88 Filipino workers who were stranded in the Dubai international airport and could not proceed to Iraq, but refused to come back to the Philippines. They and the 51 workers Mayberry testified about—and possibly other unpublicized groups—may be part of what Madsen calls “low-wage slave trading in the Middle East.”)

Madsen says that the Arroyo administration banned the PPI—which operates from PO Box 42252, in Dubai—from further recruiting Filipino migrant workers for the Middle East after a Filipino was killed during a terrorist attack on Camp Anaconda in 2004.

Madsen: “Inside sources report that PPI has some high-level financial partners, including the Nahayan royal family in Dubai and Cheney.” Madsen claims there is a connection between PGMA’s “ordering the repatriation of Filipino workers from Iraq and Kuwait, and the discovery that US Marine Corps and FBI spy Leandro Aragoncillo, a Filipino-American who worked as a Marine security aide inside Cheney’s office… who was arrested by the FBI last October [2005], had stolen dossiers from Cheney’s office that were considered damaging to Mrs. Arroyo.”

“Aragoncillo passed Cheney’s reports on Macapagal-Arroyo, some of which were obtained from National Security Agency intercepts, to [Joseph] Estrada, a political opponent of Macapagal-Arroyo… Estrada was planning a coup against Macapagal-Arroyo with US support.” (Emphases mine.) The above means that the NSA was intercepting and eavesdropping on PGMA’s landline and cell phone conversations, and passing on the dirt to Estrada. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Hello Garci tapes were first made public by Allan Paguia, a “former” lawyer of Estrada.

The above paragraph confirmed what I have written several times, that the neo-cons in Washington, who are led by Cheney, wanted to see Arroyo removed from office, for (a) withdrawing the Filipino contingent from Iraq; (b) signing an oil exploration agreement with the Chinese on the Spratlys; and (c) failing to dismantle the Jemaah Islamiyah camps in Mindanao. (See my article “Replacing GMA,” June 14, 2005).

That paragraph also confirmed what I wrote when the Hello Garci scandal first broke out in June 2005, that “the Americans here certainly have the capability for eavesdropping on President Arroyo’s cell phone or landline conversation and recording whatever incriminating statements they can find for future use, when she is no longer useful to them…” (See my article “Junta? Maybe. Erap? No,” June 7, 2005).

Finally, that last paragraph from Madsen also confirmed my belief that the neo-cons favored Joseph Estrada to replace Mrs. Arroyo because of the “total war” that he had waged against the Muslims in Mindanao when he was president. (See my article “US Loves Erap,” Sept. 25, 2005) His chief lieutenant, Horacio Morales, was summoned twice to Washington, the first time in November 2004, the second time in March 2005, in both times meeting with the staff of Cheney.

But after the Aragoncillo-Michael Ray Aquino espionage case was thoroughly investigated by the Americans, Estrada—considered the main beneficiary and financier of the caper—and Panfilo Lacson—the former boss of Aquino—have been dropped from the neo-cons’ short list of replacements for GMA, and the Americans have decided to stay with GMA until 2010, or until a suitable replacement can be found before 2010.

1) If Dick Cheney and the US govt were secretly giving damaging documents thru Aragoncillo to topple the Arroyo adminsitration, you'd think the FBI and the Bush justice dept. would even bother investigating Aragoncillo if it is in the interest of the US to see Arroyo gone? And risk implicating Dick Cheney?

2) The US gov't isn't the only entity that can eavesdrop on unsuspecting cellphone callers. Isama mo na rin diyan ang ISAFP. But one thing we can all agree on is that the tapes are real.

3) If the US really wanted Arroyo out, their usual M.O. is that mag-iingay yan about the lack of credibility (Belarus) of our last presidential elections as soon as lumabas yung garci tapes noong 2005 (lalo na kung GALING SA KANILA yung tape at alam nilang totoo ito, hindi po ba?) Ganyan rin ang ginawa nila sa Ukraine by encouraging People Power, right? Or being vocal about it's support for Lebanon's Cedar revolution to kick out the Syrians, or the effort by Venezuelan civil society to oust strongman Hugo Chavez--before it failed.

If Arroyo knew that the US is the one destabilizing her gov't, don't you think she would have reacted the same way as chavez? The US plot to remove arroyo would have damaged even further the already damaged relations between the US and RP after the IRAQ pullout. You'd think Arroyo would ever trust the US again kung totoo yung conspiracy theory mo? Or is it more likely na this would push Arroyo even closer towards US rival China?