Garcimania!

From Neal Cruz:

Garci refuses to answer questions relating to his conversations with Ate Glue in the Garci tapes saying that they are not admissible as evidence. At the same time, he said he would sue anybody who used or listened to the tapes, as he was a victim in those wiretaps. How can he prove anything if the tapes are inadmissible as evidence? If he admits he is a victim in the wiretaps, then he also admits he is one of those caught on the tapes and that the tapes are genuine.

Garci really has a selective memory. He readily answers questions that would absolve him and Ate Glue (especially Ate Glue) but refuses to answer those that would further incriminate them. Instead of answering questions, his testimony raises more questions. Instead of a closure, it has blown the scandal wide open.

Obviously, Garci was ordered home to testify in a desperate move by Ate Glue to close the legitimacy issue against her. She knows that she will never have peace until she leaves Malacañang one way or the other. She must convince the people that she is a legitimate president, that she did not cheat her way to Malacañang as her conversations with Garci indicate. Garci’s testimony that they did talk (only once, Garci said, but Sen. Aquilino Pimentel said they talked on the phone at least 15 times) but it was not to cheat is her last gambit. The gambit is blowing up in their faces. The conspirators are sinking deeper into the muck of lies.

And of course, go read Malaya, PDI, PCIJ, and Tribune too for the latest on all things Garci.

Archbishop Deogracias Iniguez: Garci best actor

Sa gitna ng pagharap kahapon ni ex-Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano sa congressional inquiry sa "Hello Garci tape", tahasang ipinahayag ng ilang matataas na lider ng Simbahang Katoliko na maituturing na "best actor" ang una sa dramang anila’y pinapatakbo ngayon ng pamahalaan upang lusutan nito ang naturang isyu.

Ayon kay Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez malinaw na isang drama na pinapaikot din mismo ng pamahalaan ang naging pagsasalita ng dating Comelec official upang ganap nang mailigtas ang pamahalaan sa isyu ng umano’y dayaan sa nakaraang 2004 presidential elections.

"Personally I feel some suspicions. Sa palagay ko itong nangyayaring ito eh is a move in order to get out of this, eto nga meron silang problema ngayon dito sa mga tapes na ito, so siguro ‘yan ang purpose n’yan. So once Garcillano speaks na, matapos na itong mga nangyayaring ito," ani Iniguez.

And Ellen Tordesillas says things are coming to a head.

UPDATE: More from Malaya:

HOUSE opposition members yesterday said the refusal of former election commissioner Virgilio Garcillano to answer questions on the "Hello Garci" wiretapped conversations was tantamount to an admission his was the voice recorded on the tapes.

"Di ka naman makakahanap ng knockout blow talaga dahil siyempre ang tao di naman aamin. So we have to be patient about it. It’s like pulling teeth from a person who refuses to see a dentist," said Rep. Ronaldo Zamora (PMP, San Juan), one of the pro-impeachment lawmakers.

"Hindi naman na namin inaasahan that Garci would tell the truth. Basically he was there to develop a story, a script given by his masters but I don’t think he was able to do that because we stopped him from scoring points," Zamora added.

Zamora, in his interpellation at the hearing of the five House committees on Wednesday, told Garcillano that he could not have it both ways – refusing to admit that the voice in the tapes was his while asking the Supreme Court to rule that the playing of the tapes and the congressional inquiry are prohibited under RA 4200 or the anti-wiretapping law.

"How can you claim to be a victim and deny in the next breath that he’s the voice in the tapes? How can you be a victim when you never participated. Hindi daw siya sasagot until that (SC resolution of the case). But he was the one who filed the petition. Now his claiming his rights saying ’there’s petition before SC, how can I answer?’" Zamora said.

Zamora said Garcillano is like "a person who murders his parents but asks the judge that ‘you have to be merciful because I’m already an orphan.’"

LMAO. More:

"I hope by the time he gets back he would think very carefully because his story is not selling. He should come up with a better story or better yet with the truth," Zamora said.

Rep. Roilo Golez (Ind., Parañaque) said "Garci’s statement that he could not recognize his own voice (on the tapes) was pathetic."

"Ginagago niya (Garci) ang mga tao. He froze when I asked him to read segments of the tape transcript to get his voice sample. He was about to read…That was obvious, until some people intervened. But he was trapped," he said.

Golez said he believes Garcillano knew that "a voice sample would betray him in a voice analysis."

"Refusing would mean he was hiding the truth. One must judge not just on the basis of what Garci said but also what he did not say. Most of my Rotarian friends said the voice sample did him (Garci) in," he said.

From the Malaya Editorial, re Garci, ISAFP and EO 464:

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, chair of the panel, said he was not yet ready to conclude that the wiretapping was conducted by the Intelligence Service of the AFP. He said he would wait to hear the side of ISAFP first.

The problem is EO 464 which bars national security officials, among others, from accepting invitations from the legislature without the permission of Gloria.

EO 464, it will be recalled, was issued after national security adviser Norberto Gonzales was cited by the Senate in contempt for withholding information on the Venable lobby contract. Now, there is good reason to believe EO 464 is meant as an umbrella for hiding any and all crimes this administration has committed.

The pattern is all too clear. The administration will lie, shamelessly and consistently, on the electoral fraud charges hurled against it.

The pieces of the puzzle, however, are starting to fit. The ISAFP tapped Garcillano’s conversations. The tapes were sold to former NBI deputy director Samuel Ong who, in turn, gave copies of the tapes to the opposition. So there’s no question about its authenticity.

In the tapes, 14 separate conversations between Gloria and Garcillano were recorded. The conversations unmistakably centered on how to doctor the results of the elections. Documentary and testimonial evidence received by the Senate corroborate in detail the specific cases of election rigging mentioned in the conversations between Gloria and Garcillano.

We are back to where we started when Press Secretary Ignacio "I have two tapes" Bunye made public the existence of the wiretapped conversations, this time with the moral certainty that the "Hello Garci" tape – not the "Hello Garry" tape – is authentic.

Read the whole article.

UPDATE: Sounding off the alarm bells over our faltering economy.

Cielito Habito, former economic planning secretary during the Ramos presidency, says that the economy is slowing down. The slowdown is all over: investments, government spending, growth in personal consumption spending, exports, imports, the equity and foreign exchange market.

Habito titled his talk "Too Early to Party, or The Real Score on the Philippine Economy." While the rest of Asia is moving up, getting credit upgrades and improvements in business outlook, the Philippines’ outlook is basically gloomy. Prices, jobs, income and other indicators are moving in the wrong direction, downwards.

Says Habito: "I used to say that the economy is being propped up by the Filipinos’ love affair with text but even that is slowing down."

Habito notes that the second quarter saw a "sudden increase in government spending" because "revenues are being used for lobbying against the President’s impeachment."

As for the things that Gloria claims as her achievements – a better peso and higher local share prices – Habito says the reason behind the strong peso and improved stock market are due to the weak dollar and the improvement in the oil prices. But instead of being buoyed by these developments, Habito sees the Philippines as being "at the end of the queue for hot money" or excess global funds. When these funds are dispensed, we get coins to the thousands that our Asian neighbors attract.

Habito says: "It is not appropriate for the President to claim credit for the improved performance of the stock market. It is just that there is a lot of money around looking for somewhere to go but we should have been getting more."

"We seem to be on a catch-up mode but we are still down there, no better than where we were, and the other countries are up there," Habito says.

The real score for the Philippines is that we have very large debt payments. In 2005, target tax revenue collection was P750 billion but debt service payments amounted to P646 billion.

Thus, for every P10 collected, P9 went to debt service and only P1 to government expenditures. "This is unprecedented in history," he said.

The budget gap could be narrowed through new taxes, improved collection efficiency, less graft and corruption, less unnecessary spending, less deviations from the medium term development plan, and less deficits of government corporations.

Will the e-VAT help? Probably not. Habito says that the collection efficiency for the VAT is only 13 to 20 percent!

What Habito sees as the "more disturbing" signs of economic meltdown is the fact that the middle class has been affected. The signs of this are the drastic drop in enrolment and increase in tuition payment delinquencies in schools such as La Salle and Ateneo, the drop in enrolment for medical doctors, the increased enrolment for nurses, and the recruitment of teachers to teach English in the US. Our middle-class workers are looking to find jobs abroad, instead of planning a future in the Philippines!

But, worse, according to Habito, is that the country lacks credible leadership. "There should be a credible and inspiring leadership that can win the goodwill, faith and cooperation of both creditors and taxpayers," he said. Obviously, we do not have that!

Yet, Gloria Arroyo plans to set aside even more money for debt service in 2006. Debt service payments in 2006 will total P721.78 billion or P2 billion per day, a 12 percent increase from 2005.

"We are getting deeper into debt. Debt payments are far outpacing revenue generation," says Cielito Habito.

That, dear reader is where we really are.