Garcillano off the hook

THE exoneration of government officials implicated in the wiretapping controversy that started in June last year and almost toppled the Arroyo government is now complete with former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano cleared of charges that he falsified his passport and lied before a congressional inquiry in order to avoid criminal culpability.

In a 12-page joint resolution, the Department of Justice (DOJ) ruled that there is no probable cause to prosecute Garcillano for perjury, violation of Passport Act of 1996, and falsification of public document. The charges against Garcillano stemmed from two cases — one complaint filed on March 24, 2006 by Senator Panfilo Lacson and three representatives, and another filed on April 4, 2006 by 16 opposition congressmen led by Cavite Rep. Gilbert Remulla.

The dismissal of charges against Garcillano caps the series of investigations on officials named in the “Hello, Garci” tapes, all of whom were likewise absolved.

Last April, a military fact-finding report cleared three high-ranking military officials — Army chief Lt. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, retired Maj. Gen. Gabriel Habacon, and retired Lt. Gen. Roy Kyamko – of conspiring to rig the votes in favor of the President. The other general mentioned in the tapes “as being pro-opposition” — retired Brig. Gen. Francisco Gudani — was also cleared.

Esperon, who was named army chief August last year, was the first among the three generals to be promoted by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo despite his links to the alleged cheating. Habacon, whose appointment was likewise marked by controversy, was appointed Southcom chief months after. Kyamko, meanwhile, was reported to have been given the post of executive director of an anti-crime task force created under the environment department just weeks after the Mayuga report was released.

Arroyo herself escaped trial by the Senate twice after the administration-dominated House of Representatives thwarted efforts to have her impeached for serious allegations of electoral fraud, apart from charges of graft and corruption, the unabated killings of activists and journalists, and exercising dictatorial powers to block investigations into the said wrongdoing.

“The DOJ and the Arroyo administration have lost all credibility with the dismissal of cases against Garcillano. It is decisions like this that explains the breakdown of rule of law in this country,” said lawyer Harry Roque, head of the private legal team that helped the House minority draft the amended impeachment complaint filed against Arroyo in 2005.

But the DOJ said: “It would be unfair for the respondent to answer for the charges filed against him, however sensational or scandalous he committed acts may be, where the reasonable probability of his guilt thereon has not been fairly established by the state. In the same way, it would also be unfair for the state to spend for a useless trial of a case.”

Akbayan Rep. Loretta Ann Rosales, one of the complainants, said the dismissal only shows that the government is “lawyering for Garcillano.”

“The DOJ is behaving in the same manner as with the Subic rape case. No matter what evidence you will provide, it will always be not enough,” Rosales said.

In his findings, DOJ state prosecutor George Yarte Jr. said Garcillano could not have “willfully use(d) an alleged falsified passport” since the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas did not find Garcillano’s passport “to have been a product of forgery or counterfeiting.”

“What was merely found therein was that the passport ‘does not conform to standards,'” Yarte wrote. “If indeed there was forgery or counterfeiting, the BSP report would have stated it so in no uncertain terms.” (See post: BSP finds irregularities in Garcillano’s passport.)

But Rosales said the fact that BSP found the passport “problematic” means the passport is fake. “That has to be sufficient,” she said.

Yarte further wrote that there is insufficient evidence to prove that Garcillano falsified documents. He argued that the note verbale from the Singaporean government stating that Garcillano arrived in the city-state on July 14, 2005 and left the next day “cannot be given legal weight” because of the following:

• The document was not authenticated;

• Under the rules on evidence, a note verbale is not one of those which the courts may take judicial notice of, thus, it should conform with all the legal formalities of an ordinary documentary evidence of authentication and proper identification for it to be admissible in evidence;

• Passport No. JJ243816 was not proven to have been falsified;

• There was no entry in the passport indicating that respondent was in Singapore on the purported dates; and

• Between the note verbale and the passport, the latter should prevail.

On the charge of perjury, Yarte said it had no sufficient basis.

In the complaint, the group of Lacson alleged that Garcillano lied under oath before the joint congressional hearings of the House of Representatives. In the hearings, Garcillano repeatedly said he did not leave the country from July 2005 to August 2005, at the height of the “Hello, Garci” controversy. (See related reports here and here.)

He denied ever being in Singapore, London, Brazil, and Malaysia, places were he was rumored to have been kept in hiding with the help of administration supporters. There were also reports that Garcillano and his wife stayed in Saudi Arabia, from where he sent letters to friends complaining about their “hard life.” But Garcillano maintained that he merely sought refuge with friends in Mindanao.

Yarte said the complaint “merely concluded and alleged” that Garcillano’s testimony that he never left country was “false and therefore perjurious.” He said it was not specifically shown that Garcillano’s statement was false.

Also, Yarte said the transcripts of the hearings do not show that the testimony was made under oath, or more specifically, “it was not made before a specific person authorized to administer oath or that a competent person actually placed him under oath before he testified.”

“Is the DOJ saying Garcillano lied but not under oath?” Rosales said, “Everything is being done to downgrade the evidence pointed to the commission of perjury.”

Yarte added that since Garcillano’s passport was not proven to be fake, “the presumption of truthfulness of (Garcillano’s) statement that he did not leave the country during the questioned dates was not debunked.”

The case was transferred to the DOJ on September 4, 2006, after the complainants filed a motion for investigating prosecutor Lawrence Chua Cheng V of the Quezon City court to inhibit himself from the case. Chua Cheng was allegedly being partial to Garcillano.

Rosales said they might file for an appeal before the Court of Appeals. Garcillano’s counsel Ed Tamondong is however confident that any appeal “would be likely denied.”

Read the DOJ resolution.