“Hello, Garci.”
Never have two words awakened a nation as profoundly as those uttered by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at the height of the tabulation of votes to then Commission on Elections Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano. Days after the Garci tapes revealing the conspiracy between a supposed president and a ranking election official were played before a shocked nation, street protests gathered steam and threatened to overthrow a leader the people had brought to power four years earlier in EDSA 2.
Arroyo was holding on to the last twig of power when former President Fidel V. Ramos, a party mate and supporter, and the bishops dampened the protesters’ spirit when they refused to join the protests. Almost immediately, the street protests lost steam and the move to find the truth about the rigging of the 2004 presidential elections shifted to Congress, where three impeachment complaints were filed against Arroyo in connection with the alleged conspiracy to cheat opposition candidate Fernando Poe Jr.
On the wee hours of September 6, 2005, while the rest of the nation was past asleep, Arroyo’s minions in the House of Representatives bullied the outnumbered minority, and junked the three impeachment complaints on technicalities, and stopped the opposition from arguing or even presenting evidence in the Senate, where the impeachment trial was supposed to be heard.
It was the second time the House suppressed the truth on the real outcome of the 2004 presidential elections.
During the congressional canvass the year before, the House declared Arroyo winner after a marathon session, voting also before the break of dawn while the people slept or while being lulled to sleep by boring speeches. The ruling majority also forced the vote without giving due course to the opposition’s appeal to open the election returns in selected areas, where they said the certificates of canvass were rigged.
Arroyo challenged the opposition to follow the rule of law and bring their case on the Garci tapes and allegations of poll cheating to Congress for impeachment, but every move she and her allies made suppressed the truth.
The people were given a peek at the truth through the controversial Garci tapes and the testimonies of some people who claimed to have witnessed the travesty of the country’s electoral process. But Arroyo and her allies did everything to prevent the truth from coming out.
Emboldened by her escape from prosecution in the “Hello Garci” election cheating scandal, Arroyo obviously turned again to her trusted co-conspirators in the 2004 rigging in an attempt to rig this time the 2007 senatorial elections. She had to prevent the opposition from controlling the Senate, which was eager to impeach her.
In Maguindanao, where the Ampatuans reigned and where much of the rigging was done in 2004, the Arroyo slate improbably crushed the opposition, 12-0. The tainted votes could have easily given Lakas bet Jose Miguel Zubiri the slim lead he gained over 13th placer Koko Pimentel of the opposition.
With the recent revelation by former Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Governor Zaldy Ampatuan that Arroyo’s husband Mike Arroyo met with his father, Maguindanao Governor Andal Ampatuan Sr., to rig the 2007 elections, and the subsequent statements by former Maguindanao election supervisor Lintang Bedol that both the 2004 and 2007 polls were rigged, the people now have another chance to see the truth in the two controversial elections held during Arroyo’s tenure.
Zaldy said that during the canvassing of the 2007 election results, “Mr. Bong Serrano (executive assistant of then presidential spokesman Gabby Claudio), acting under orders of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, delivered to Maguindanao P30 million to P40 million and official ballots to be used in replacing ballots.”
Zaldy also said that in February that year, just two months before the elections, his father met with Mike Arroyo in a Makati Hotel to map out plans to ensure a zero vote against senatorial candidates Noynoy Aquino, Pia Cayetano and Ping Lacson, and to give their votes to Zubiri, who eventually topped the Maguindanao polling. He said Mike Arroyo gave his father P3 million during the meeting.
Bedol, on the other hand, said the investigation on poll fraud in 2004, including the “Hello, Garci” vote rigging scandal, should be revived. He said he was willing to testify on the alleged anomalies. He said that during the 2004 elections, ballot boxes were switched.
Bedol said he had wanted to surface after hiding for almost four years so that he could expose the anomalies, but he feared for his safety, believing he could suffer the same fate as Comelec law department director Alioden Dalaig, who was shot dead outside the Hyatt Hotel in Malate, Manila on Nov. 10, 2007.
With the damaging testimonies of these two former officials who had first-hand knowledge of the poll fraud conspiracy, the Department of Justice should now launch a full-scale investigation of the 2004 and 2007 poll anomalies.
We have heard Arroyo emote in her “I…am…sorry…” telecast, apologizing for talking with Garcillano during the counting, but we know that behind the sad façade was a lying, thieving, cheating politician who would stop at nothing to suppress the truth.
After the junking of three impeachment complaints against Arroyo in September 2005, I wrote about Arroyo’s suppression of the truth:
“It’s like those levees in New Orleans’ Mississippi River. They can only hold the water for so long, and when the waters rise, they will come rampaging and break the levees. One can only suppress the truth for some time, but like those rampaging waters, it shall find a way to prevail.”
Now may be that time when truth shall prevail. The Aquino administration should not let the opportunity to dig into the truth about the 2004 and 2007 elections. Arroyo can no longer summon his puppets in Congress or the vast resources of the government to suppress the truth.
For seven long years, the Filipino people had carried the baggage that “Hello Garci” left them. For six long years, Arroyo presided over a beleaguered nation under a cloud of doubt.
Let the truth set the people free, and bring the culprits to jail.