NTC GAGS BROADCAST MEDIA, NO AIRING OF GLORIAGATE TAPE

From the Daily Tribune:

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.

Malacañang, through its National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), has already warned all broadcast media not to air the tapes as they stand to lose their permits to broadcast.

The NTC told all broadcast companies not to play the taped conversations between the President and Garcillano wherein she urged the election official to ensure the commission of poll fraud to favor her candidacy.

In a memorandum, it cautioned “all radio stations and TV networks owners/operators that the conditions of the authorization and permits issued to them by government like the provisional authority and/or certificate of authority explicitly provide that said companies shall not use (their) stations for the broadcasting or telecasting of false (information) or willful false representation.”

“Relative thereto, it has come to the attention of the (NTC) that certain personalities are in possession of alleged conversation which they think involves the President of the Philippines and the commissioner of the Comelec regarding their supposed violation of election laws,” the NTC said.

The government telecommunications watchdog noted that since the veracity of the tape has yet to be verified, radio and TV stations should not air the same, particularly in their news programs.

“Considering that this taped conversation has not been duly authenticated nor could it be said at this time that the tapes contain an accurate or truthful representation of what was recoded therein, it is the petition of the commission that the continuous airing or broadcast of the said taped conversation by radio or TV stations is a continuing violation of the anti-wire-tapping law and the conditions of the provisional authority and all certificates of authority issued these radio and TV stations,” the NTC said.

The commission added if the tapes would be proved to be inaccurate, the companies that aired them would have their licenses suspended or even revoked.

“If it has been subsequently established that the said tapes are false, the concerned radio and TV companies are hereby warned that their broadcasting or airing of such false information or willful misrepresentation shall be just cause for the suspension, revocation and/or cancellation of the licenses and authorization issued to the concerned companies,” the NTC said.

“This is pure censorship,” a broadcaster told the Tribune, but said “there is really nothing that the broadcast industry can do, since the government can cut them out of business.”

The broadcast media in the Philippines have never fought for their freedom of the press and expression and usually toe the Malacanang line, fearing a cutoff by the NTC.

The independent-foreign voice recording analyst expert reportedly faxed his initial findings of the four tapes that were said to contain the taped conversations between Mrs. Arroyo and her political fraud operator, Garcillano.

The initial findings also showed, a source also yesterday told the Tribune that even the dialled numbers were identified by the Australian firm, which will make it even harder for the Palace to deny that Mrs. Arroyo and Garcillano were the parties in those tapes.

The two Malacanang-released tapes, one of which presidential spokeman and Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye declared was a “doctored” CD and another which he claimed was the “original”

that contained a conversation between the President and a claimed “Gary” who later identified himself as a political election campaign aide named Edgardo Ruado, were both pronounced as being tampered, while in the copy with the Paguia annotation, the conversations between the two parties were judged as unaltered or unedited.

The findings by the Australian voice analysis firm placed Malacañang claims in further doubt, as the latest Palace spiel on the “original tape” and “doctored' tape it presented to the media is that it is not Mrs. Arroyo's voice on either tapes.

The findings of an Australian expert also placed under serious suspicion the credibility of conclusions yet to be made by local authorities, namely the National Bureau of Investigation, tapped by the Palace to examine the the tapes as his findings came in and backed up by formal and in-depth examination, using high-technology equipment.

Dr. Brian Lovell, in yielding the results, virtually jumped the gun on Malacañang in case the administration thinks of the idea of concealing from the public the truth behind the controversy.

“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 in making his conclusion.

He issued the report on the examination he made on the alleged conversations of Mrs. Arroyo “to determine if there was any evidence to suggest that they had been interfered with.”

Through the efforts made by Lacson, the foreign voice analyst expert's services were tapped to scrutinize the tape, the same copy that lawyer Alan Paguia claims to be in his possession in view of the pronouncements made by the Palace that this was an “edited” copy.

The forensic audio examination report is said to be have been done with complete professionalism and the firm's Lovell comes highly qualified.

Lovell's research interests span signal and image processing, signal and image analysis, computer vision, face and gesture recognition, machine learninsg, pattern recognition and classification.

He has been a researcher with the Cooperative Research Centre for Sensor Signal and Information Processing and currently a contributing researcher to NICTA (National Information and Communications Technology Australia).

Lovell serves as president of the Australian Pattern Recognition Society (APRS) with about 150 members nationally, is the voting member for Australia on the Governing Board of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), as well a being a member of the IAPR Nominating Committee.

An associate, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia and a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

Lovell has been an expect witness on forensic audio examination on several cases including a high-profile case during the Drummond Inquiries which involved appearances in the district court.

He performed two audio examinations in 2004 and one of these led to an action through the Criminal Misconduct Commission.

His forensic image work includes facial recognition for the Commonwealth Department of Public Prosecutions and photo verification for a civil suit.

Meanwhile, the telephone lines of radio station dzEC was reportedly cut yesterday after an announcement made by the station that it would be interviewing Lacson on the findings of the controversial taped conversations between the President and the Comelec commissioner.

DzEC's phone lines apparently went down shortly after their anchors said on air they would try to interview Lacson and get his side on the matter.

The technician on duty yesterday said it was a “technical problem.”

At about 1:30 yesterday afternoon, dzEC radio announced it would be interviewing Lacson but at about 1:45 p.m., the station's anchors went off the air, and the station repeatedly played plugs of its public affairs programs.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the anchors went back on air, saying the interview with Lacson will no longer push through due to “technical problems” and the phone lines were down.

But dzEC sources said there was no order from Malacañang not to air the interview.

With Jun P. Yap