In a seven page complaint, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Representatives Teofisto Guingona III, Alan Peter Cayetano, and Joel Villanueva, alleged that Garcillano lied when he claimed before the House of Representatives that he never left the country during the height of the “Hello Garci” controversy and presented his passport to substantiate his claim.
The complainants, however, pointed out that the poll official falsely made, forged, and counterfeited a passport and used it before a congressional investigation in support of his “perjurious testimony.”
They said Garcillano used the passport “to (allegedly) mislead Congress and the Filipino people (into believing) that he never left the country.”
The complaint stemmed from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) statement, after examination of the questioned document, that Garcillano’s passport was transfered and the note verbal from Singapore confirming that Garcillano visited Singapore at the height of the controversy.
“The findings made by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas can only point to the inescapable conclusion that the subject passport presented by Respondent Garcillano was fake. In other other words, Respondent Garcillano did not only speak a lie but he went as far as manufacturing a fake passport just to support his false claim that he never left the Philippines,” the complaint said.
Now the next question is, who within the administration helped Garci escape?
More on Garci's perjury and obstruction of justice problems from PCIJ.
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Another tasteless Raul Gonzales comment.
JUSTICE Secretary Raul Gonzalez yesterday lashed back at the mother of the 22-year-old rape victim in Subic who called for his resignation over the alleged mishandling of the case against four accused US servicemen.
The mother, who was interviewed recently over several television stations, lambasted Gonzalez’ plan to downgrade the charges against three of the four accused.
Gonzalez stopped short of calling the mother of the alleged rape victim "ignorant" of the law, saying she might have been wrongfully influenced by "people who are crying for blood."
"Is she practicing to be a movie star? I am never influenced by emotional outbursts of people who don’t know the law anyway," he said.
Gonzalez said the woman should review the statements made by her daughter before making unsolicited comments about his alleged mishandling of the case.
Classic!
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Church group issues guidelines to fight gov’t repression
A group composed of priests and nuns from all over the country has officially come out with guidelines to fight which it described as repressive measures being implemented by the Arroyo government.
The Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines (AMRSP), said in a statement yesterday that the government’s ongoing suppression of the people’s freedoms needs to be fought, and can only be done by “overcoming (the) fear” spawned by Proclamation 1017 and other similar orders.
“We cannot watch with indifference the unfolding of events reminiscent of the martial law days. The chilling atmosphere has crept within the cloistered walls. Our grounds for reflection which go beyond legality cannot but focus on upholding the dignity and rights of our people and the integrity of our national patrimony,” the group said.
“We find ourselves sharing the confusion of our people faced with continuing threats to freedom, situations of fear and violence and the contradictory pronouncement of the government that all is well,” it added.
This is different from the palusot given by the CBCP to remain silent on the issue of abuse and other civil rights violations perpetrated by the ARroyo admin.
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Oh no! Another Kill Gloria plot announced by the military. LOL.
I'm sure this will be picked up again by the International media and bloggers outside the philippines.
Malaya editorial on the "Kill-GMA" plot:
That’s what worries us about this alleged assassination plot against Arroyo. It’s only Malacañang which has been talking about it. It first surfaced in the days leading to the PMA alumni homecoming last month. The attempt, the Palace now claims, has been reset to today’s PMA graduation.
Given the Palace’s credibility, or rather the lack of it, the alleged assassination plot is seen as another ploy to justify the crackdown against those calling for Arroyo’s ouster.
I may not like arroyo, but i don't want to see anybody killed or assasinated.
the editorial ends with this statement, which i completely agree:
So we fervently pray nothing happens this weekend. Real or fake, any assassination attempt would only lead to more vicious assaults against perceived enemies of Gloria. And who knows where the cycle of violence would stop.
-- Lito Banayo explains his "Wear Blue" article:
Areader, Rudy Portugal, reacted to our article entitled "Wear Blue", a satire on the fascistic arrest of Dinky Soliman and her company of blackshirts. He suggests that we also remove the colors red and yellow from the flag, and just retain the blue and white.
That’s both the Doña’s favorite color and those of the school which has Senor Don Jose Miguel Arroyo y Tuason as favorite alumnus.
-- Photos from yesterday's Black Friday Protest. Mas dumami ang sumali this time around.
Read this too from Malaya.
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-- Arroyo continues to use fuzzy math to window dress their statistics
What the IMF particularly noted was that the GDP figure, which is, in reality, made up of estimates rather than the actual counting of economic outputs, is padded, using production estimates against those that are based on total national expenditures which better depict economic output.
The IMF said the discrepancy between the two estimates is large. The international creditor in its paper stated that the statistical flaws can be attributed to outdated data and methods in making economic estimates.
Yet, there are instances when statistics agencies come up with the so-called updated methods or formula in computing data, such as one on jobs in which the criteria for the unemployed were increased from two to three, resulting in a lower unemployment figure.
The February jobless rate was 8.1 percent using the revised formula against 10.7 percent with the broader definition of the unemployed.
That only goes to show that the statistical agencies may be migrating from one formula to another as they see fit to make up the Arroyo administration’s image.
Gloria’s bean counters have been caught once engaging in fuzzy math.
In 2002, the Asian Wall Street Journal came up with a report suggesting that the Arroyo administration fudges its current account data by understating imports.
During that time, the various credit rating agencies were looking over Gloria’s shoulders because of the worsening fiscal data. The budget deficit at the end of that year hit a historical high of more than P210 billion.
A better trade picture would have shown that the dismal fiscal performance of Gloria is not affecting the economy. Rating agencies, nevertheless, not too long ago decided to downgrade the country’s ratings.
The National Statistics Office (NSO) later admitted having erred in the computations of both exports and imports due to what it claimed as missed data inputs from the country’s free trade zones.
The NSO also admitted having counted exports from the zones twice, resulting in a better than actual trade and current account figures.
The formula for computing the incidence of poverty was also changed last year resulting in a poverty decline from 27.5 percent in 2000 to 24.7 percent in 2003. Who would believe that bull?
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PCIJ: Reining in the press through advertising?
And this:
It was after this incident that Malacañang came up with the EO to make media critical of Gloria toe the Palace line.
Evidently, the Palace ploy is to ensure that the government ads go the “Gloria-friendly media” as well as those who are now willing to follow what Malacañang says is fit to print and air.
Is this unconstitutional? It will be if it can be proved — as it will eventually be proved — that government ads, taken from public money, will only benefit the Gloria-friendly media and choke the critical media.
Tax money does not come from Gloria’s supporters. It is extracted from every citizen in this country, through direct or indirect taxation. Even the poorest of the poor have to pay tax, such as the expanded value-added tax, whether in oil or food products.
Gloria has already diverted, in the billions, tax money to fund her election campaign, which is a gross violation of the Constitution and is an impeachable offense.
She still wants to commit yet another violation of the Constitution with this all-out control of government ad placements.
So why should tax money intended to be spent on government advertising be given only to the friendly media? That will have to be questioned before the court and the Tribune will make sure it will question this ad choke against the paper, in time.
I guess Malacanang is trying to replicate what Erap did to PDI, only on a more massive scale.
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