Ex-military spy confirms anew Arroyo-Garcillano conversation



By Veronica Uy
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 06:21pm (Mla time) 08/21/2007


MANILA, Philippines – (UPDATE) A former member of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines has confirmed the cell phone conversation between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano during the counting of votes in the May 2004 elections.
Technical Sergeant Vidal Doble Jr., whose video-taped testimony formed part of Senator Panfilo Lacson’s privileged speech, said he was part of the Military Intelligence Group 21 that also eavesdropped on opposition leaders Fernando Poe Jr., Horacio “Boy” Morales, Rez Cortez, cashiered Senator Gregorio Honasan, former presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor, and members of the Magdalo Group, including now Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, who led the shortlived mutiny last July 27, 2003.
Doble said his wife and two kids were kidnapped by the ISAFP just as he was about to expose the truth behind the scandal that had been dubbed as “Hello Garci.” He said his family stayed in the basement of the office of then AFP Chief Efren Abu from June 2005 to April 2006.
He said he himself was similarly kept in “restrictive custody” from June 2005 until his discharge in January 2007, when did not re-enlist.
With Vidal’s formal confirmation of the eavesdropping project, Lacson raised the “extremely alarming” specter of ISAFP playing Big Brother, “eavesdropping with ease on the conversations of whomsoever they choose, or whomsoever they are ordered to spy upon.”
“The targets of Project Lighthouse were not terrorists by any stretch of its definition…The intelligence project itself is a paradox. For it was not the lighthouse that we know, it was the lighthouse that brought darkness into this benighted land,” the senator said.
Questioned by lawyer Alex Abesado, Doble said Project Lighthouse consisted of 14 soldiers headed by Captain Frederick Rebong, who he claims is studying abroad. Other officials Doble named were Captain Paul Sumayo and Lindsey Recsan.
Doble said that of the four teams, he was with team two, headed by Master Sergeant Alex Villedo and Technical Sergeant Ariel Vitale. He said he himself was the team leader of the wire section of MIG21, ISAFP’s technical group, when he heard the conversation between the President and Garcillano.
Doble said he heard President Arroyo call Garcillano about the additional one million votes. He said he recorded the conversation, a copy of which he gave to Rebong while keeping the master tape with him.
He said he gave four more copies to Lito Santiago, an aide of former deputy director Samuel Ong of the National Bureau of Investigation.
Quoting Doble, Lacson detailed the steps involved in electronic eavesdropping: a cell phone conversation is coursed through a cell site of the service provider; the service provides splits the signal and relays it to a cell-phone unit that can record voice calls (“in this case, a Nokia 3600 programmed for the purpose by the service provider”); the conversation is recorded as a digital file to the duplicate cell phone’s memory card, and is transferred to a computer; the file is then transferred to a cassette, compact disc, or other media.
Lacson ad-libbed during his speech and warned fellow Senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Manuel “Lito” Lapid against using the cell-phone to communicate with their “objects of interest.”
“Kaya sa inyo, Bong Revilla at Lito Lapid, mabuti pang personal na kausapin ang inyong kinalolokohan [It would be better if you personally talk to the object of your interests],” he said.
Lacson challenged Elections Commissioner Rene Sarmiento, who had called for a probe of the Hello Garci scandal, to be “instrumental in redeeming the Commission on Elections from its present image as a cheating machinery into a true guardian of democracy.”
He decried the use of the ISAFP, which “has been so debased by the political leadership …to thwart that sovereign will.”
“Truly nothing could be darker. Nothing could be more sinister,” he said.



Bubukas uli ang 'Hello Garci' investigation!