GLORIAGATE roundup

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin-Lanche!!! Thanks Michelle.

Ellen Tordesillas, who once wrote a book re Estrada's corruption and excesses, observes:

GLORIA Arroyo may not fall this week or even next week but I seriously doubt if she can recover from the damage wrought by her taped conversations with Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano that showed the two of them conspiring to make sure that the 2004 presidential election will result in her lead of more than one million votes which was what eventually happened.

One thing is certain: The conversations did take place. That was confirmed by Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye when he came out with the Malacañang-doctored tapes in a desperate attempt to confuse the issue. Arroyo herself affirmed Bunye’s statement when she referred reporters to Bunye’s statement when asked about it immediately after Bunye’s press conference.

Bunye’s backtracking after two days of silence merely confirmed the panic that is gripping Malacañang these days.

HALA LAGOT!

There's so much more info in that article. I suggest you read it all.

Respected UP Professor and PDI Columnists Randy David has already heard the tapes, and writes:

The identity of the speakers in these conversations can, of course, be established through "voice print" analysis. My own interest is different. Out of academic curiosity, I listened repeatedly to broadcasts of these conversations, and studied the published transcripts. I wanted to know if the conversations were not contrived, or whether they exhibited rational properties. There is a sub-specialty in sociology called "ethnomethodology" that inquires into the rational characteristics of conversations. The method looks at the orderly nature of human interaction-a conversation for example-as an ongoing achievement by the participants. A lot of meanings are exchanged in the course of the conversation, beyond what may be gleaned from a merely literal interpretation of words.

Normal conversations are littered with what analysts call "glosses"-expressions that are intelligible only in the context of background understandings. A gloss is a short-cut, a device that makes elaborations unnecessary, but yields its meanings only in the light of shared background information. It is easy to fabricate one conversation, but it is not easy to invent a whole series while maintaining stable identities and a consistent tone.

A whole world has been assumed and brought out in these fascinating conversations-the world of political fraud and electoral fixing. The key figure is a male voice variously referred to as "Commissioner" or "Garci." It was obviously his phone that was bugged. By the types of situations brought to him for fixing, by the variety of people desperately seeking his help, and by the frightening ease with which he dispenses solutions-one would know that this man is an old hand in the underworld of electoral fraud.

He knows exactly where to pull additional votes and for how much, and how to deal with recalcitrant election registrars who don't cooperate. Politicians come to him for help like anxious little children. They rely on him to do all the dirty tricks they need to do to win, things they themselves would sanctimoniously decry in public.

This is the political operator that "Ma'am" repeatedly calls as she nervously awaits the results from far-flung towns in Mindanao. Listen to this cryptic exchange: "Hello Ma'am?/ Hello, meron tayong statement of votes, ERs para sa Sulu?/ Saan po Ma'am?/ Sulu, Sulu./ Oo Ma'am meron po./ Nagco-correspond?/ Oo Ma'am./ Kumpleto?/ Oo Ma'am. Lahat ho meron, hindi po namin ika-count kung.... / Ok, ok."

On the surface it does look like an innocent exchange. The key word here is "nagco-correspond"-a gloss that refers to the practice of fixing canvass results at, say, the provincial level so that they are not at variance with precinct election returns or statement of votes for municipalities. The other gloss is the question "Kumpleto?" This is not a harmless inquiry. Given the kind of response it elicits, it is an urgent demand to make sure the doctoring is done with care.

One knows this from examining other conversations: "Hello/ Hello, Ma'am, good morning. Ok Ma'am, mas mataas ho siya pero mag-compensate po sa Lanao yan./ So will I still lead by more than 1 M overall?/ More or less, but it is still an advantage, Ma'am. Parang ganun din ang lalabas./ Oo, pero it will not be less than 1M?/ Pipilitin ho natin yan. Pero, as of the other day, 982./ Kaya nga eh./ And then, if we can get more in Lanao./ Hindi pa ba tapos?/ Hindi pa ho. Meron pa hong darating na 7 municipalities./ Ah, ok, ok./ Sige po./ Ok, ok, ok..."

This man is not in the business of counting votes; he produces them.

And where in the world is Commissioner Garcillano, btw?

And more potential bad news for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, an Australian firm that specializes in authenticating audio tapes -- and is used by HK and Aussie police -- has verified that the tapes were "not altered".

Lacson tapped the Uniquest Pty Limited, the technology and consulting company of the University of Queensland in Australia, to conduct voice verification.

Uniquest Pty has confirmed that the voices in the taped conversations were "not altered" by modern technology.

In a faxed preliminary report to Lacson, Dr. Brian Lovell of Uniquest Pty said: "In my professional opinion there is no evidence that would suggest that the conversations have been altered in any way from their original recorded form."

Lovell said the findings were based on their examination of the conversations in the tapes submitted by Lacson. The examination was done to "determine if there was any evidence to suggest that they had been ‘interfered with.’"

The Tribune also has a report on this:

Aussie tape test find: Gloria, Garci voices confirmed
NTC GAGS BROADCAST MEDIA, NO AIRING OF GLORIAGATE TAPE

By Angie M. Rosales and Carlo Leo Manuel
Monday, 06 13, 2005

There is no more denying that the various telephone calls between two public officials, said to number 11 calls that focused on how to cheat opposition standard-bearer Fernando Poe Jr., through massive, deliberate nad systematic electoral fraud to ensure a female candidate's victory with a one million vote lead, are authentic.

Even the cellphone numbers were identified.

An independent Australian company analyzed not only the authenticity of the tape that was annotated by lawyer Alan Paguia, submitted by opposition Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson to the foreign voice analysis firm, but also the voices in the audio compact disc (CD).

The Australian Firm, Uniquest Pty. Ltd, that tapped Brian Lovell, an associate professor and Research director of the Intelligent Real Time Imaging and Sensing Group at the University of Queensland, has identified the two officials in the tapped telephone calls as President Arroyo and Commission on Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

To this day, Malacañanag has shown reluctance in having these tapes submitted to independent and foreign voice analysis firms giving them only to the local agency under the control of the Executive.

Yeah, why the reluctance, Malacanang?

US charges d’affaires Joseph Mussommeli also talked to reporters re the tapes:

US charges d’affaires Joseph Mussommeli said in an ambush interview at the vin d’honneur in Malacañang Saturday that the US is willing to help in examining the tape if the Philippine government asks for assistance. Otherwise, he said, "it is not our business."

Interesting. So why haven't the Arroyo admin asked for third-party assistance from the U.S. FBI?

The Malaya Editorial has more questions for the Arroyo admin and Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, and has this to say:

Yesterday, Arroyo, in her Independence Day address, excoriated "destructive politics." The taped conversations are the most eloquent evidence on who trampled on the people’s right to elect their leaders.

Arroyo said the primary challenge now is how to move the economy forward. It isn’t. The challenge facing the nation is the restoration of the people’s trust on the leadership.

And trust can only be built on truth.

A full week into the scandal and Gloria has yet to say, "No, that’s not me talking to any Tom, Dick or Harry."

More comments from Conrad de Quiros, Ducky Paredes.