Poll cheat report slams Arroyo, foes for cospiracy<\/p>\n
John O'Callaghan, Reuters\/Manila<\/p>\n
The Philippine government tried to cover up election cheating
\nallegations last year but was battling a conspiracy to oust
\nPresident Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, a draft report by a
\ncongressional committee showed.<\/p>\n
The document, reported in the Philippine Daily Inquirer
\nnewspaper on Wednesday, is being discussed by five panels from
\nthe lower house of Congress looking into opposition claims that
\nArroyo conspired with an election official to seal her victory.<\/p>\n
The \"Hello Garci\" tapes were a series of audio recordings
\nallegedly featuring Arroyo talking by telephone with former
\nelection commissioner Virgilio Garcillano about rigging the
\npresidential election on May 10, 2004.<\/p>\n
The tapes mysteriously surfaced in June, sparking months of
\ncrisis for the president, including desertions from her Cabinet
\nand a failed impeachment in September.<\/p>\n
Arroyo's foes in Congress and in regular street protests are
\npressing demands she step down, but the turmoil has largely
\nsubsided without the middle-class anger that toppled dictator
\nFerdinand Marcos in 1986 and Joseph Estrada as president in 2001.<\/p>\n
Arroyo, whose new term is due to run until 2010, apologized on
\ntelevision in June for talking to an election official but did
\nnot say it was Garcillano and insisted she did nothing wrong.<\/p>\n
The author of the draft report, Congressman Gilbert Remulla,
\nsaid the five committees hoped to reach conclusions by next week.<\/p>\n
\"Everything will be there, from the cover-up to the conspiracy
\nby the opposition,\" said Remulla, a member of the ruling
\ncoalition who nonetheless voted in favor of ousting Arroyo during
\nthe failed impeachment.<\/p>\n
\"We're not taking any sides. I know that we cannot make
\neverybody happy with the report,\" he told Reuters.<\/p>\n
President Arroyo's spokesman, Ignacio Bunye, called the
\nallegations of a cover-up \"grossly unfair\".<\/p>\n
\"But we have to point out that some committee members
\nthemselves were on fishing and witch-hunting expeditions and were
\nusing the probe as a political platform,\" he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The source of the tapes has yet to be established and many
\nquestions remain, including how the president's phone
\nconversations were tapped and for whom.<\/p>\n
The recordings, whether real or altered, \"just materialized
\nout of thin air and fell fortuitously on the laps of the persons
\nwho brought them to public attention\", the draft report said.<\/p>\n
Other recordings released by the government, purportedly
\nshowing Estrada conspiring with unknown people to assassinate
\nArroyo, were \"suspiciously short and clearly spurious, not to say
\nunquestionably fabricated\", it said.<\/p>\n
Arroyo's administration gave \"no sincere co-operation\" to the
\ncongressional inquiry and \"contributed nothing toward arriving at
\nthe truth\" about the tapes, said the report.<\/p>\n
Arroyo's officials have said they consider the matter to be
\nclosed and the focus is now back on the economy, with a broader
\nsales tax that will help the government cut its chronic budget
\ndeficits and the costs of borrowing money.<\/p>\n
But Roilo Golez, a congressman and former national security
\nadviser who left Arroyo's party, said on television: \"It will
\nnever be closed until Commissioner Garcillano has appeared\".<\/p>\n
Garcillano's whereabouts are not known after he slipped out of
\nthe Philippines in July. Media have reported sightings in
\nSingapore, Britain and South America but the chat at diplomatic
\nevents and in coffee shops is that he could be dead.<\/p>",
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