Late Night GLORIAGATE roundup

- PNP, Isafp, Reyes can't keep their lies straight re raid

- DFA accused of helping hide Garci

- Malaya has an editorial on the "Goodbye, Garci" escape

But Garcillano departed in style. He boarded a chartered jet in Clark. The jet, which incidentally is frequently used by Malacañang for Gloria’s provincial trips, dropped by the Manila domestic airport to file a flight plan. It was cleared for Singapore by no less than seven government offices, with Garcillano as an unmanifested passenger.

Garcillano traveled VIP all the way. And the cover-up went on until the foreign affairs department told Rep. Gilbert Remulla, chairman of the lead panel in the investigation, on Wednesday that Singapore had confirmed Garcillano’s arrival on July 14 and his departure the next day. Interestingly, the Singapore information was a week old before the DFA found it fit to inform Remulla the House panels’ quarry had flown the coop. The reason? Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo did not immediately give clearance for the information’s transmittal to the House.

But we are belaboring the obvious. The administration hid Garcillano and helped arranged his escape.

- From Ducky Paredes:

Assuming that the joint force of the CIDG of the PNP and the ISAFP were acting on the request of the home owner to find out what former NBI handwriting expert Segundo Tabayoyong (and a potential witness in an election fraud complaint against Gloria Arroyo) had in his rented room, why did they have to come in full force at two in the morning just to accommodate a complaining house owner?

Cases like these are usually processed at the barangay level. The chairman and some of his tanods can check the room for the landlady and it will be a perfectly legal search. Why was there a need to bring in the PNP and the AFP? Why was there a need to raid the room?

Both Loren Legarda and Senate President Franklin Drilon noted that the raid "smacked of martial law tactics."

Says Loren:

"The CIDG and the ISAFP have no business holding those documents a minute longer. Those election returns were duly forwarded by the Comelec to the KNP, the latter being the dominant opposition party at the time of the 2004 elections.

"The KNP, in turn, can ask anyone to study these election documents which show the massive electoral fraud committed by the party in power last year."

Why did the joint PNP-AFP force even take the documents away? True, there is a criminal case to be found and ferreted out of those documents but the crime that was committed was actually committed against Loren Legarda and the Filipino people since they prove that Gloria Arroyo stole that election and has no right to pretend at being our president. But I am sure that none of the raiders were looking to do anything about Gloria’s crime against the people.

In fact, the police and the military look like they are thinking of doing something illegal with those documents by destroying them.

Loren says: "Heaven forbid that those seized pieces of evidence are destroyed, tampered with or inexplicably lost by those who took them illegally.

"However, those who want to subvert the truth on who really won in 2004 are mistaken if they think they have left us with nothing to prove our case that they cheated. We have boxes and boxes of E.R.s to prove the fraud they committed."

- One word: "Marcosa"

- Reyes, CIDG refuse to give up seized ERs

It was already deemed an illegal raid by the police and military elements of the rented home of opposition witness and documents analysis expert Segundo Tabayoyong from where election documents belonging to the Fernando Poe Jr., camp were seized, but the police aren't turning over the records to the opposition.

This was the position taken by Interior Secretary Angelo Reyes and his Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) chief Sr. Supt. Asher Dolina, saying they will turn the seized items over to the Commission on Elections instead.

Reacting to the hardline position taken by Reyes, Minority Leader Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. accused Malacañang of the most shameless kind of public deception by denying having a hand in the police and military personnel-led raid, adding that Reyes had only manifested the contrary as they refuse to return the documents.

“Reyes is now sanctioning an illegal act. He should be sued as a conspirator,” he said.

The senator charged that the raid was carried out on orders of the Palace with the apparent objective of sabotaging the impeachment case against President Arroyo by harassing opposition witnesses, resource persons and stealing documentary evidence in their possession.

At the same time, Sen. Rodolfo Biazon demanded an explanation from newly appointed Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff Gen. Generoso Senga on the involvement of the AFP's intelligence agents in the raid and seizure of evidence against the administration on its poll fraud operations.

Biazon, who once held Senga's position during the Aquino administration, yesterday demanded justification of the Isafp involvement, under pain of a suit against the military officers on grounds of obstruction of justice and possible tampering of evidence.