INQUIRER.net Eleksyon 2007

‘Hello Garci’ issue touches raw nerve at Comelec

Inquirer

Nikko Dizon

MANILA, Philippines -- Bitter memories of the “Hello Garci” controversy resonated at the Commission on Elections office Thursday as an activist priest and Commissioner Resurreccion Borra engaged in a shouting match.

The newly organized Kontra-Daya group, led by former Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. and activist priest, Fr. Joe Dizon, went to Borra’s office to invite Comelec officials to a meeting on Monday.

Kontra-Daya said it wanted to have a “constructive engagement with the Comelec so that the anticipated systematic and massive fraud in this year’s mid-term elections may be prevented, thwarted, or at the minimum exposed, and those responsible rightfully punished.”

Tempers flared when the group raised the “Hello Garci” issue, accusing the Comelec of failing to investigate the controversy involving illegally recorded phone conversations about the election results in Mindanao between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former Comelec Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano.

Volatile situation

“We would not be in this very volatile situation if the ‘Hello Garci’ tape did not happen, if you had investigated... it would have put closure to that,” Dizon shouted.

Borra shouted back, saying that the Comelec couldn’t have conducted an investigation as Garcillano was a commissioner.

“If the Comelec had conducted an investigation and he was acquitted, you would have said ‘daya!’ [it was rigged),” he said.

Borra said Congress was the best institution to investigate the audiotape controversy.

But Dizon said the Congress investigation was merely a “numbers game.”

“Most likely, you do not trust the Comelec also,” said Borra.

“Definitely! I’m not trusting you! That’s precisely why we have organized and that’s why we are engaging you because we do not trust you that you can give us a credible election,” said Dizon.

Borra said the lingering perception that the Comelec cheats was unfair.

He told the group that he has never cheated in his 46 years at the Comelec.

The pervading “culture of distrust” was not good for the country, he said.

If only all citizens were as “critical, destructively or constructively,” it could translate to vigilance that would lead to clean and credible elections, he said.

Dizon said that it was exactly what Kontra-Daya was doing, devoting time, money and talent to ensuring the May elections are clean.

Closure

At which Borra smiled and said: “That is the best. Congratulations, I like it!”

The two men shook hands.

Guingona stressed the need to “put closure” to the scandal of the 2004 presidential elections.

“The perception that there will be massive cheating is something we cannot afford anymore,” he said.

Borra and Commissioner Rene Sarmiento have separately said that the May 14 mid-term elections would be a “litmus test” of the poll body’s credibility as an institution.

“We have to do our best to make this a credible election to redeem the Comelec’s name, because if it fails, [the Comelec] would be beyond redemption,” Sarmiento said in a phone interview.

Borra said the Comelec’s response to the public’s distrust was to prepare very well for the May 14 elections and ensure transparency.

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